Re: Uniform access to descriptions

Michaeljohn Clement wrote:
> Pat,
>
> Thank you, this illuminates the discussion a great deal, 
> especially now that Xiaoshu has confirmed its correspondence 
> with his intentions.
>
> This immediately raises, for me, some questions (for Pat or 
> Xiaoshu or anyone):
>
> - Is this view an accurate view of the Web which exists? 
>   A goal?  Or simply an alternative, interesting idea?
>
> (I would say only the latter.  And I thought I detected a bit of a 
> gleam in your eye, Pat, throughout.)
>   
Honestly, does it matter? (I.e., if it is accurate or not?)  Neither Pat 
nor I have re-invented and demanded any re-invention of anything new.  
In fact, what we tell you is that - the web is fine.  We simply give you 
a new perspective on the web so that, if you agree and comprehend it, 
your mind may (hopefully) be in a much clear and peaceful state and you 
will be more confident to work with the web.
> - Is the narrow, awww:represents meaning of 'represents' a problem 
>   to be resolved by propagation of the original, broader English 
>   meaning into the Web architecture?
>   Or is the confusion a natural result of the co-option of an English 
>   word as a technical term, comparable to our use of words such as 
>   "server" and "client", in which case it should be resolved in other 
>   ways, viz education and clarification?
>
> Again I would say the latter.
>   
Of course. 
> - Would the effective dropping of awww:resources out of the universe 
>   of (convenient) discourse a desirable or acceptable state of affairs?
>   
What matters is the conceptual understanding.  But the tendency of our 
human history is simply reuse the word but readjust the understanding.  
Copernican revolution changed how we think about "earth" but doesn't 
require we invent a new word for it.  Einstein told us time and space is 
elastic but we nevertheless keep the word.  Word is a symbol, just like 
a URI.  What matters is our understanding about the thing that the 
symbol denotes, not the symbol itself.  
>> We might call it a storyteller for R. R might have a whole lot of 
>> storytellers, each capable of telling different kinds of story about R.
>>     
>
> A question mostly for Xiaoshu:
>
> - In this view, do you consider it desirable for a storyteller to be able 
>   to tell precisely 0 or 1 stories about R per media type?
>   
I have explained my design pattern for the web in my respond to Tim's 
argument.  If you are the resource owner, you understand your resource 
better than anyone else, and you know who your potential clients are.  
Don't you think it is reasonable to make it your decision rather than mime.

But I can give you a use case of people that I am working with.  We have 
some data we would like to provide.  This is what I tell them.

First, for each data's URI, give them an HTML representation and make it 
a default one if user doesn't specify a specific mime-type.  Because 
this is the major mode of user behavior.  Imagine if we publish data in 
a journal or conferences, when people get the URI, their first instinct 
is to use their browser.  If they see an XML, or RDF, or some tab 
delimited form, they might be very discouraged.  But when they see the 
HTML page, they can always know there are some other types of data they 
can use for a particular applications.

Second, find the most desired data format that your potential client 
want.  Then, support that format.  And then, the second most desired 
data, ....

Third, if they capable, support it in RDF.  Although we are dealing with 
the semantic web here, but I ask to that later b/c there lacks suitable 
ontology and there are few clients understand RDF yet. Of course, a few 
years from now on, the priority of this might change.

The above step allow you to provide your resource incrementally.  It 
really depends on how much time and resource you have and what your 
potential target is. 

I only recommend design pattern and tell them if they desire to get 
their data be more broadly found and useful.  The rest is up to them, do 
you think this make sense?

Xiaoshu

Received on Sunday, 13 April 2008 01:25:38 UTC