Re: New draft TAG Finding on The Self-Describing Web

FWIW,
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webarch-comments/2004OctDec/0153.html

Take: don't view tag docs as "mathematical-proof" specs, they are
guidelines that need to be interpreted with a grain of salt.

-M

On 5/30/07, Jonathan Rees <jonathan.rees@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm sorry, I'm new to the list and haven't had time to review the
> archives. I know these topics have been pounded to death, so please
> just point me to previous threads if they address my points. I'm also
> writing hastily since I know y'all are talking about this soon.
>
> - You (and others) say: "Information resources are resources,
> identified by URIs and whose essential characteristics can be conveyed
> in a message [AWWW]." This is not an operational definition; I have no
> idea how to consider some resource, apply this criterion, and
> determine whether or not it is an information resource. For example,
> what message, if any, conveys the essential characteristics of the
> resource denoted by http://news.google.com/ ? Surely today's news has
> little bearing on the essence of this resource. I, at least, would
> have said that the resource is something whose essence is to give the
> moment's news at every moment. The message you get from an HTTP GET is
> just a sampling of complicated variable, not the variable itself.
>
> Well, you haven't stated any relationship between the postulated
> message conveying the resource's essence and the messages we get when
> we dereference its URI; that might allow a loophole of some kind. But
> I don't think you intend to separate those two.
>
> Anyhow, Google is the URI owner and gets to decide what the URI
> denotes; so who are we to be talking about the essences of Google's
> resources? If we know independently what a URI denotes, and have an
> objective definition of "information resource", then we can take
> stands on the information-resourceness of the denoted resource.
> Otherwise it's an exercise in futility, and instead we should just be
> talking empirically about URI's and HTTP experiences.
>
> - I think httpRange-14 doesn't really mean to say that the fact of a
> 200 response implies that the resource is an information resource;
> after all, assuming that "information resource" has some ontological
> legitimacy, servers can be wrong, inconsistent, or deceptive (consider
> the HTTP response you get by dereferencing
> http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes/PatHayes.html, which directly
> contradicts httpRange-14). I think the intent is that a 200
> constitutes an *assertion* that the resource is an information
> resource. The shift from implication to assertion allows that Pat can
> be right while his server is wrong.
>
> Jonathan
>
> On 5/24/07, noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com <noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> >
> > I am pleased to announce the availability of a revised draft of a TAG
> > finding, now titled "The Self-Describing Web" [1,2].  This replaces the
> > draft [3] which had the title "The Importance of Self-Describing
> > Documents".  The title has been changed to reflect the fact that the
> > finding discusses not just the creation of individual self-describing
> > documents, but the self-describing qualities of the Web as a whole.
> >
> > This draft has been prepared for discussion at the June 2007 Face to Face
> > Meeting of the TAG [4], and it is intended in part to address comments
> > made at the March 2006 Face to Face Meeting of the TAG [5] (for some
> > reason the minutes linked at [5] are W3C member-only;  I expect we'll fix
> > that shortly.)  The material in chapters 1-3 is adapted from the previous
> > version of the finding.  I believe it's in reasonably good shape, and
> > should be reviewed accordingly.  Chapter 4 and its subsections are new,
> > and are correspondingly rougher.  I think even chapter 4 is easily good
> > enough to make clear what material I intend to cover, but I do expect that
> > it will need at very least some editorial work.  It also has not yet
> > benefited from any review by other members of the TAG.
> >
> > FYI:  I have updated the references to this finding in the F2F agenda at
> > [4], and also added a reference to it in the public list of draft TAG
> > findings at [6].  I look forward to comments from the TAG at the F2F next
> > week, and to comments from other readers of www-tag.  Thank you!
> >
> > Noah
> >
> > [1] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/selfDescribingDocuments.html
> > [2] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/selfDescribingDocuments-2007-05-24.html
> > [3] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/selfDescribingDocuments-2007-02-25.html
> >
> > [4] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2007/05/29-agenda
> > [5] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2007/03/06-minutes#item08
> > [6] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/findings#draft
> >
> > --------------------------------------
> > Noah Mendelsohn
> > IBM Corporation
> > One Rogers Street
> > Cambridge, MA 02142
> > 1-617-693-4036
> > --------------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 30 May 2007 18:06:41 UTC