- From: Chris Lilley <chris@w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 15:51:26 +0200
- To: Mark Baker <distobj@acm.org>
- CC: www-tag@w3.org
On Friday, August 1, 2003, 11:03:33 PM, Mark wrote: MB> I don't believe I've ever claimed that. I claimed that MB> http://www.markbaker.ca/ identified me, the person (as my FOAF MB> asserts[1]). I've also claimed that http://www.markbaker.ca/index.html MB> identifies my web page, though I don't think I've mentioned that here. MB> What you might have heard me say was something about how it's impossible MB> to distinguish between me and my web page if the representations MB> returned from GET on those two URIs have been equivalent, because MB> its the representations that determine the "sameness". This is where the definition of resource in the arch document (bits plus metadata) helps, because those two representations are (slightly) different - the bag o'bits is the same, most of the headers are the same, but the one returned from http://www.markbaker.ca/ maybe also has a Location: header or some other way to differentiate it? Lets see [clilley@tux clilley]$ telnet www.markbaker.ca 80 Trying 216.126.80.155... Connected to markbaker.ca. Escape character is '^]'. GET / HTTP/1.0 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 13:24:27 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.23 (Unix) Last-Modified: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 20:03:04 GMT ETag: "1fc29-2a05-3f2ac778" Accept-Ranges: bytes Content-Length: 10757 Connection: close Content-Type: text/html <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Mark Baker</title> (and so on) [clilley@tux clilley]$ telnet www.markbaker.ca 80 Trying 216.126.80.155... Connected to markbaker.ca. Escape character is '^]'. GET /index.html HTTP/1.0 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 13:26:22 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.23 (Unix) Last-Modified: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 20:03:04 GMT ETag: "1fc29-2a05-3f2ac778" Accept-Ranges: bytes Content-Length: 10757 Connection: close Content-Type: text/html <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Mark Baker</title> (and so on) OK so these are different URIs (strcmp) returning identical resources (etags, LMD, etc). Incidentally this seems related to siteData-36 in that it hilights once again the impossibility of referring toa site, however that is defined and most simply as a URI without a path, as distinct from the welcome page of that site. MB> Anyhow, this last exchange between you two has been particularly MB> enlightening for me with respect to identifying what appear to be two MB> major disconnects between you. If you'll endulge me for a moment. MB> Disconnect #1; Documents/Web-pages. Culprit; Roy. MB> As Tim mentioned, Roy does seem to be assuming that a timbl:web-page MB> is what is returned from GET, a bag-o-bits. Tim has said several MB> times that it isn't, that's it's an abstraction, such as "a picture of MB> Dan's car" in the abstract, rather than some particular PNG of it. I think TimBL was applying that abstraction to 'resource' not 'representation'. One particular representation might well be a PNG. What you get back from a GET is always a representation, not a resource. See diagram in http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Aug/0018.html BTW our archive system tries to put all image/* resources inline on the img element and gives no other link to them or way to get at them other then view source and hack the uri. For the svg, see: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Aug/att-0018/uri-res-rep.svgz MB> Disconnect #2; Identifying timbl:web-pages. Culprit; Tim. MB> Tim asked; MB> "In your alternative architecture, where does one get the explict MB> information from - which allows one to refer to a web page by its URI MB> without meaning bridge or a person?" MB> Roy has talked about this at least once on www-tag that I can MB> remember (but can't find, sigh), but also in a recent discussion between MB> the two of you, archived on www-archive. He wrote; MB> "In any case, saying that "http" identifies an information resource MB> would not eliminate the indirection issue. A document can talk about MB> some other document just as easily as a car. We eliminate the MB> indirection MB> case by declaring that assertions that target a URI are assertions on MB> the resource identified by that URI: state that is only reflected by the MB> content of all its representation over all time. The only way to make MB> assertions about the information content returned by an action is to MB> add qualifiers for method and time, since the architecture requires MB> that those be orthogonal to the identifier." MB> -- http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2003Jul/0007.html An assertion I would substantially agree with. An interesting result of Roy's argument is that resources, since they cannot be observed directly, can only be inferred through observation of the representations that they have returned over time. I think that is a valuable observation and leads further to a principle that I find clarifying, though it may upset some: resources are inherently second class objects. URIs are first class objects, and may be stored, transferred, compared for equality and so forth. So can resource representations (and proxy caches do this all the time). Resources, though, are a derived abstraction. You can't observe them directly, or measure them, or compare them. You can compare their identifiers, but not the resources themselves. Their meaning, the abstraction that they convey, is reverse engineered from observation or from shared social discourse. The meaning is not observable from the identifier in isolation, only from the usage of this identifier. Naturally, social usage of an identifier is influenced by the representations returned from it. Consistency, then, is a social effect where observations on the usage of the identifier and observations on the returned resources are substantially in agreement. Consistency is an analogue quantity, not a binary one - consistency can be greater or lesser, can be argued about, has shades of meaning, and whether the consistency is good enough depends on the use that will be made of it. To oxaca weather example demonstrates this. The resource is never actually stated or fully defined, merely inferred. "The weather in oxaca" is not suitable as a definition, merely as an aid to social discourse - an *environment of use* of the identifier. More precise definitions (the weather at the weather station in oxaca, lattitude this, longitude that, with temperatures updated every 20 minutes and rainfall updated every 24 hours), or merely different definitions (a prime example of the centralist tendency to asset that the center of a town and it's suburbs have the same weather), can always be made. MB> Hopefully that helps. Sorry for butting in, but I'm just itching to MB> see this resolved. Please do butt in. Discussion helps. -- Chris mailto:chris@w3.org
Received on Monday, 4 August 2003 10:20:28 UTC