Re: Arch Doc: 18 Sep: abstract

On the whole, I like what Roy has written a lot.  At the risk of causing 
more confusion, I have some concern about the use of the term "hypertext 
links".  No doubt the Web's roots are in hypertext, but the Web aspires to 
a certain universality.  Accordingly, there are and will be many resources 
which are not best thought of as text resources, and some (often the same 
ones) which are not in general linked from text resources.  Furthermore, 
for many such resources (both linkers and linkees), the natural 
representations of those resources need not be text. 

I wonder whether it might make sense to eliminate the word "hypertext" 
from Roy's text and refer just to "links".  I have no objection to 
additional explanatory text that might be along the lines of:  "An 
important subset of the resources on the web are modeled as text, or 
provide representations in the form of text:  "the links connecting such 
resources serve the role of hypertext links, and are often used to support 
interactive browsing and related scenarios."

Apologies if this has already been debated by the Tag.  If so, I've missed 
it.  Thank you!

------------------------------------------------------------------
Noah Mendelsohn                              Voice: 1-617-693-4036
IBM Corporation                                Fax: 1-617-693-8676
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"Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@apache.org>
Sent by: www-tag-request@w3.org
09/22/2003 07:19 PM

 
        To:     "Ian B. Jacobs" <ij@w3.org>
        cc:     www-tag@w3.org, (bcc: Noah Mendelsohn/Cambridge/IBM)
        Subject:        Arch Doc: 18 Sep: abstract



>    http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2003/webarch-20030918/

I know that some folks are annoyed that I keep going back to
the beginning, but I consider the abstract to be an abstraction
of the ideas presented in the rest of the document, and if I can't
agree with the abstraction then it seems unlikely that the details
will be useful either.

The only way I can rationalize the requirements of the
hypertext Web with those of the Semantic Web and Web Services,
without skinning the latter two, is to treat them as three systems
using a common information space called the Web.  As such, we have
to get our definitions right or the description becomes full of
contradictions, some of which were pointed out by Pat Hayes.

I also include my definition of "on the Web", which others may
want to edit, because there doesn't seem to be any point in
beating around the bush `til we get to the main text.

....Roy


--- webarch.html        Mon Sep 22 15:55:56 2003
+++ webarch-roy.html    Mon Sep 22 15:55:26 2003
@@ -76,17 +76,22 @@
  <h2 class="notoc"><a name="abstract" id="abstract">Abstract</a></h2>

  <p>
-The World Wide Web is an information system in which a network of
-resources are related through hypertext links. Web architecture
-defines the desired operational behavior of agents within this
-information system and for protocols that govern interactions between
-these agents. It is influenced by social requirements and software
-engineering principles, leading to design choices that constrain the
-behavior of the Web in order for the system to achieve desired
-properties: to be an efficient, scalable, shared information space
-that can continue to grow indefinitely across languages, cultures, and
-information media. This document is organized to reflect the three
-dimensions of Web architecture: identification, interaction, and
-representation.</p>
+The World Wide Web is a networked information space consisting
+of resources that are interconnected via hypertext links and
+descriptive metadata.  Web architecture encompasses both
+protocols that define the information space by way of
+identification and representation, and protocols that define the
+interaction of agents within systems using the information space
+to provide, retrieve, create, analyze, or reason about resources on 
the Web.
+A resource is considered to be "on the Web" if it can be independently
+referred to by at least one Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), even if
+access to that resource is restricted.  Web architecture is
+influenced by social requirements and software engineering principles,
+leading to design choices that constrain the behavior of systems
+using the Web in order to achieve desired properties: to be an
+efficient, scalable, shared information space that can continue
+to grow indefinitely across languages, cultures, and information media.
+This document is organized to reflect the three dimensions of Web
+architecture: identification, interaction, and representation.</p>
  </div>

Received on Tuesday, 23 September 2003 17:37:06 UTC