RE: Some TAG review of "Cool URIs for the Semantic Web"

>  > 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