RE: Arch Doc: 18 Sep: abstract

Navigable?  Addressable.  Better for me because 
that gets me navigable.  I am not uncomfortable 
with 'address space' because by convention I 
have come to associate it with 'scope'.  I 
think the reason 'information space' makes me 
pale is that it seems to wed the content to 
the system that hosts it, and that is something,
at least in markup, one tries to avoid although 
in practice, it isn't completely possible because 
names are content even if syntax is not.  The 
web definitions work for most people precisely 
because the web is a system in which some names (URIs) 
and addresses are the same, therefore, a certain 
percentage of the content IS systemic, thus 
the opacity of URI debates.  One shouldn't, 
but one knows one can peek.  The arch doc can't 
dance around the fact of URIness as both name 
and address in practice.  It possibly should 
be quite explicit that this is the base concept 
of the web as a system.

At the very least, I hope a glossary of the 
important nouns is added to the Arch Doc. 
That should patch some of the conceptual 
leakage.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Sandro Hawke [mailto:sandro@w3.org]

> "Information space" still has a mystical incantation 
> kind of feel. 

+1

Google does not suggest it's a well-understood term.  For instance, we
have Clay Shirky saying, in a class syllabus for "Thinking about
Networks":
 
        Week 4. Visualizing Networks I

        What is "information space"? How can you visualize an
        N-dimensional network in 2D space? 3D space? What visual tools
        and techniques are there for representing networks? 
	    -- http://stage.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~cs97/tan/#classes

I don't know what Dr. Shirky thinks "information space" is, but the
fact that he puts scare quotes around it, and covers it under
visualization, suggests he's using it differently from the TAG.

When last I visitted this topic, I came up with an informal
definition...
 
        The idea of an information space is that information can be
        collected into units, and these units can be arranged to
        somehow be navigable.
                    -- http://www.w3.org/2002/11/webarch4/v3.html

... but without such a definition, I think using the term does more
harm than good.

        -- sandro

Received on Wednesday, 24 September 2003 11:10:03 UTC