RE: Valid representations, canonical representations, and what the SW needs from the Web...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext Larry Masinter [mailto:masinter@adobe.com]
> Sent: 02 February, 2003 00:28
> To: Stickler Patrick (NMP/Tampere); dehora@eircom.net
> Subject: Re: Valid representations, canonical 
> representations, and what
> the SW needs from the Web...
> 
> 
> http://xml.resource.org/public/rfc/html/rfc2518.html#METHOD_PROPFIND 
> 
> is 
> 
> >        ....  a standardized mechanism by which one might
> > inquire from an HTTP server about all metadata knowledge available
> > from that server about a resource....

Thanks Larry. This is definitely something I will look at in
detail.

Though it does raise the obvious question: since this standardized
functionality exists, why do we need RDDL? Or rather, why does a
RDDL instance need to be treated as a *representation* of an XML
Namespace, rather than just a body of metadata describing various
characteristics of the namespace resource and relations to other
resources?

Why not just do a PROPFIND on the XML Namespace to get the same
knowledge that would be defined in a RDDL instance, which would
then not blurr and distort the conceptual relationship between
resource and representation, since I'm presuming that whatever is
returned by PROPFIND is not considered to (necessarily) be a
representation of the resource.

Granted, typical browser users are not used to thinking about
metadata, but that doesn't mean they would not understand and
welcome a means to ask a server "Tell me about this thing"
rather than "Show me this thing".

???

Patrick

--
Patrick Stickler, Nokia/Finland, (+358 40) 801 9690, patrick.stickler@nokia.com
 
[I hope you don't mind my sharing this with the list, since it
seemed clearly of significance to the discussion]

Received on Sunday, 2 February 2003 07:44:14 UTC