Re: httpRange-14

Yep, a big +1 here.  Well said Chris, Patrick.

On Tue, Aug 05, 2003 at 02:51:04PM +0300, Patrick.Stickler@nokia.com wrote:
>  
> 
> 	-----Original Message----- 
> 	From: ext Chris Lilley [mailto:chris@w3.org] 
> 	Sent: Mon 2003-08-04 16:51 
> 	To: Mark Baker 
> 	Cc: www-tag@w3.org 
> 	Subject: Re: httpRange-14
> 	
> 	
> 	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.
> 	
> 	
> 
> Very well put. And SW descriptions of those resources, using RDF, OWL, etc. can aid in the general understanding of what those resources are and can be part of a more precise social interaction regarding those resources.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Patrick
> 
>  

-- 
Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca

Received on Tuesday, 5 August 2003 09:11:33 UTC