- From: Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us>
- Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:18:46 -0500
- To: "Booth, David (HP Software - Boston)" <dbooth@hp.com>
- Cc: "Technical Architecture Group WG" <www-tag@w3.org>
> > From: Pat Hayes >> [ . . . ] >> OK, fair enough. But now, lets cut out all this >> gabble about 'information resource'. As I have >> always suspected, this is ALL about HTTP codes. >> If you do a GET with a URI and you get a 200 >> response, then the URI is understood to denote >> the resource that sent you that response, a >> (REST-)representation of which you now have. >> Otherwise, you know nothing at all about that the >> URI denotes: it might denote anything. > >I agree 100%. I think the key question to ask is: *Why* is it >architecturally significant to distinguish between "information >resources" and non-"information resources"? Why doesn't the Web >architecture distinguish between other interesting classes of things, >such as mammals and non-mammals? > >AFAICT the answer is that some things are HTTP endpoints (i.e., can >return a 200 response) and some are not, and this distinction is >relevant to the Web architecture because when something is an HTTP >endpoint a lot more architectural rules apply, such as content >negotiation, media types, etc. AFAICT, whether something's "essential >characteristics can be conveyed in a message"[1] is quite irrelevant. Yes, exactly. And if one wanted to say something that went beyond mere HTML, then speak of a 'transfer protocol endpoint' for xxTP. But the point still stands: endpoints are one thing, denotations are another. Pat > >1. http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#def-information-resource > > >David Booth, Ph.D. >HP Software >+1 617 629 8881 office | dbooth@hp.com >http://www.hp.com/go/software > >Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not represent >the official views of HP unless explicitly stated otherwise. > -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola (850)202 4440 fax FL 32502 (850)291 0667 cell phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
Received on Tuesday, 25 September 2007 20:18:59 UTC