RE: [Fwd: RE: "information resource"]

But it is a perfect example, Norman.  This is 
not a game, but an attempt to create definitions 
that are testable in some fashion.   The reason, 
IMO, this is so difficult is accepting that 
'resource' is 'meaningless' and that is OK.  
It is a placeholder definition.   Some act 
must be performed before it becomes meaningful 
and the purpose of the architecture is to 
define how acts are performed.   My positions 
are that:

1.  The 'web' is not a single system.  It 
is a system of systems (your boxes).

2.  A resource is an abstraction for any 
'discrete' information resource that can be 
identified, named, or addressed.  In principle, 
a resource can be continuous, but in practice, 
an information resource is discrete.

3.  An information resource becomes a web resource 
when in discrete time, a web system acts on it.

If one is to use 'information' in the Shannon/Weaver 
sense, one accepts it is just selectable bits and 
that the system which acts on it meaningfully is 
a different system than the one that enables a 
receiver to duplicate the bits at the other 
end of the wire (or any intermediaries).  That 
is the only way I can reconcile URI opacity.

len


From: Norman Walsh [mailto:Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM]

You took all the context out of my statement, Len. That's not quite
cricket. I meant that within a technical document, we get to say how
we're using words *in that document*. Changing the color of the box,
as Stuart would likely express it, doesn't change what's in the box.
And technical specifications are all about saying what goes in the
boxes.

I was not making a statement about the meaning of words in general. I
may or may not agree with the more general statement as you've
expressed it, but it isn't what I was saying in that message :-)

/ "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@intergraph.com> was heard to say:
| Ok.  Resources are meaningless bits until you 
| say what they mean.   An information resource is one 
| act removed from a resource.   Such an act may be 
| conflating (say overloading) a URI to be a 
| name, an interpretation, and an identifier.
|
| The unification of a triple is not a fact; it is an act.
|
| len
|
| -----Original Message-----
| From: www-tag-request@w3.org [mailto:www-tag-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
| Norman Walsh
|
| Words mean what we say they mean.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM / XML Standards Architect / Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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Received on Monday, 18 October 2004 18:41:02 UTC