Re: SemWeb use case for issue httpRange-14

> Statements like Roy's [5]
>
>    The reason we call it a URI that identifies a resource, rather than
>    a UDI that identifies a document, is because we want a URI to
>    reference things in the future -- to point to a source of future
>    useful things.  That's what resource means.  It is therefore
>    impossible to "retrieve" a resource, since the fact that it is
>    available "over there" is an essential part of it being a resource;
>    the resource remains over there, so the only thing that is
>    retrieved is an instantaneous representation of the resource at the
>    point in time at which it was generated by the origin.
>
> doesn't look very different in #33 terms from how it looks in #102's
> terms.  The real distinction is just whether you focus on the
> collection of information from which the web server generates its
> response or focus past the server, as Roy does, on the subject of that
> information.

No, the real distinction is whether or not you can give a URI to
something that doesn't exist yet.  You cannot do so if what you are
naming is a document, whereas you can for a concept that is only bound
to a representation at the time of a request.

Authors live in a different timeframe from the people that traverse
their web.  The effect of the technology and the design of HTTP is
to take an author's wishful thinking and attempt to realize it at
some future date for some future user.  The Web is a network of
wishful thinking that becomes an information space in the timeframe
of any given user, with occasional gaps when the wish wasn't enough
or when the concept has yet to be realized.

Use the technology and think about what it implies.  This is not just
my opinion, it is my experience, and it isn't going to change.

....Roy

Received on Wednesday, 1 January 2003 17:13:08 UTC