- From: Graham Klyne <GK-lists@ninebynine.org>
- Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 21:25:40 +0100
- To: Xiaoshu Wang <xiao@renci.org>
- CC: Jonathan Rees <jar@creativecommons.org>, Alan Ruttenberg <alanruttenberg@gmail.com>, Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>, David Booth <david@dbooth.org>, Jeni Tennison <jeni@jenitennison.com>, "www-tag@w3.org List" <www-tag@w3.org>
Xiaoshu Wang wrote: > Don't ask people to make inference from *how* a message is received. Ask > people to make assertions in the message *explicitly*, with more refined > terms suited to their intended granularity. It's interesting that this is exactly how I used to feel about HTTP-range-14, and to some extent still do. I.e. that semantics of information should be independent of the protocol whereby it is obtained. But there remains an important consideration. Imagine an exchange: A: give me X B: I can't give you X, but here is Y I think it's fair to say that A shouldn't feel licensed to make inferences about X (the thing asked for) from B's response. After all, I don't suppose you'd suggest that A could make inferences about X if B's response was an HTTP 404? As far as I can tell, that is all that HTTP-range-14 is providing: a way to distinguish between a response that means roughly "here is what you asked for", and "here is something not what you asked for". In this respect, it's hard to argue that the HTTP-range-14 resolution is wrong. But I can appreciate that for many purposes it's not enough. Which, I think, is all that Jonathan is trying to convey. (At this point, I think I'll return the the cover of the nearest undergrowth...) #g --
Received on Friday, 24 June 2011 20:34:43 UTC