Less is more (WAS: Clarifying what a URL identifies (Four Uses of a URL))

Tim Bray wrote,
> It is quite possible that the Web Architecture works *because* it
> works around the intractable problems of meaning and only deals with
> comparing identifiers and shuffling representations around; avoiding a
> lot of problems that historically have been intractable.

I replied to the paragraph containing this sentence earlier, but I 
missed it, until Len flagged it up.

I believe Tim is absolutely 100% correct. But look Ma, no spooky  
abstract Resources ... just strings and representations.

If the Web Architecture document and RFC 2396bis could be tweaked to say 
no more than this, then many many problems would go away. URIs would no 
longer denote as far as the WebArch is concerned, they'd just play a 
role in protocols. That'd leave room for other other layers to assign 
meanings and denotations as they see fit: the Semantic Web could do 
things one way, REST could do things its way and have its abstract 
Resources, and any other approach could do things any way it chooses. 
And all would be consistent with the Web Architecture.

Cheers,


Miles

Received on Thursday, 23 January 2003 12:05:56 UTC