RE: Generic-Resources-53: URIs for representations

I suggest using the word "format" instead of "representation" in these
contexts.  
So, for example, instead of:

	"On Linking Alternative Representations To Enable
	Discovery And Publishing"

it would be:

	"On Linking Alternative Formats To Enable
	Discovery And Publishing"

David Booth, Ph.D.
HP Software
dbooth@hp.com
Phone: +1 617 629 8881
  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-tag-request@w3.org [mailto:www-tag-request@w3.org] 
> On Behalf Of Williams, Stuart (HP Labs, Bristol)
> Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 10:32 AM
> To: raman@google.com
> Cc: www-tag@w3.org
> Subject: Generic-Resources-53: URIs for representations
> 
> 
> I happened on "On Linking Alternative Representations To Enable
> Discovery And Publishing" [1] in a way that casued be to read through
> the draft. I've got what I think is an editorial comment about
> consistency of use of the term "representation" with respect 
> to the way
> it is used in webarch.
> 
> I think that in creating webarch [2] we tried to maintain a 
> fairly clear
> distinction between resources and representations (modulo anything can
> be a resource!). In that world view, IIRC, it was "resources" rather
> than "representations" that have URIs. In particular, IIRC, we framed
> representations as an ephemeral things ('bits' on a wire) that are
> exchanged between web clients and origin servers.
> 
> At 2.1 this draft asks:
> 
> "Given resource http://example.com/ubiquity/resource with 
> corresponding
> representations for a desktop browser, a PDA and a cell-phone, should
> these different representations: 
> 
>  - Have distinct URIs?
>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>  - Have a single URI that delivers the appropriate representation?
> 
>  - If publishing distinct URIs for the resource and its various
> representations,
>  
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>    how should the relationship between these URIs be expressed in a
> discoverable, 
>    machine-readable form? How should this relationship be reflected in
> the hyperlink 
>    structure of the Web?"
> 
> The language through the rest of the finding tends to speak 
> in terms of
> representations as things that can have URIs: eg.
> 
> 	2.1.1 Suggested Solution
> 	We suggest the following approach for this situation: 
> 
> 	1. Create representation-specific URIs for each available
> representation 
> 	   (representation_i), e.g.,
> http://example.com/ubiquity/resource/representation_i.
> 
> 	... 
> 
> 	4. ...using a redirect to the URI of a specific
> representation...
> 
> 	5. Use linking mechanisms provided by the representation being
> served 
> 	   to create links to the other available representations. ...
> 
> 	4 Conclusions
> 	Principal conclusions:
> 
> 	...Thus, each representation of interest should get it's own URI
> and 
> 	there should be one additional URI representing the generic
> resource.
> 
> 
> I'm not sure how I would suggest squaring this, other than to suggest
> that the alternate URI (ie. non-generic URI) are references 
> to alternate
> resources that serve up appropriate, specific, variant 
> representions of
> the corresponding generic resource.
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Stuart Williams
> --
> [1] 
> http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/alternatives-discovery-20060915.html
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch
> 
>

Received on Monday, 2 October 2006 15:03:27 UTC