- From: David Booth <david@dbooth.org>
- Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:07:20 -0400
- To: Jonathan A Rees <rees@mumble.net>
- Cc: www-tag@w3.org
On Fri, 2012-03-02 at 09:29 -0500, Jonathan A Rees wrote: [ . . . ] >(Some say that ambiguity is inherent in communication, so > disambiguation is futile, but this is rhetorical trickery. This is > like saying democracy should not be attempted because perfect > democracy is impossible. In fact particular ambiguities such as this > one can be, and are often, addressed.) If you're referring to me, you have grossly misunderstood my view. Ambiguity *is* inherent, and that *does* imply that it is architecturally pointless to mandate a distinction along one particular axis of ambiguity, such as attempting to mandate a distinction between "information resources" and "non-information resources". However, the architecture must *enable* a URI owner to convey a URI definition that is as fine-grained and precise as the URI owner *chooses* to make it. Thus it is important that the architecture *enable* a URI owner to distinguish between an "information resource" and a "non-information resource" -- or between one information resource and another, or between two things along *any* desired axis of distinction -- but the architecture should not attempt to mandate that distinction, because it doesn't *need* to. There is an important difference. -- David Booth, Ph.D. http://dbooth.org/ Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.
Received on Saturday, 24 March 2012 02:07:45 UTC