Re: Uniform access to descriptions

Xiaoshu Wang wrote:
> Michaeljohn Clement wrote:
>> - 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?)

Yes.  The Web is based on shared standards and conventions, and if you 
base your conventions on a model different from the one the rest of the 
Web is using, things stop working together.

> Neither Pat
> nor I have re-invented and demanded any re-invention of anything new. 

Your redefinition of "resource" and "representation" to me is a new 
re-invention of the Web.

>> - 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.

Let me ask the question differently: Do you believe the ability to 
make statements about Web pages, simply identifying the page by its 
URI, is worthwhile?

Your way of looking at (or redefining) the Web would lose that 
capability.  Either the URI from which you get a 200 OK response 
identifies an information resource, in which case we can make 
statements about it, or it does not in which case we cannot any longer 
make statements about the page by using the URI.  We can't even say 
what the URI identifies anymore without getting out-of-band data 
about it, which in will not often exist.

>> - 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.

I think it's better to choose a decision and then all our software can 
interoperate.

> 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.
> 
> [...]
>
> 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?

As you describe it, that sounds almost fine.  But the thing your story 
doesn't seem to clearly mention is serving something completely different, 
like a style steet, or RDF metadata /about/ the HTML Web page (not about 
what the HTML page is about), from the same URI.  If you are doing that 
then I must say that is not what conneg is for, and it matters because 
the expectations of many others will break.

Michaeljohn

Received on Sunday, 13 April 2008 03:09:10 UTC