Re: Classification of ISSUE-57 change proposals

On 3/30/2012 11:56 AM, Jonathan A Rees wrote:
> Hmm... I agree in spirit, but as an aside I quibble with the phrasing
> of the last part, and since terminology is really screwing us over I
> want to hit what you say hard. "Representation" remember is a war
> zone, with Roy using it one way (see REST and HTTPbis) and TimBL using
> it another. It is an instrument of propaganda. In Roy's view a
> description could very well be a representation; in TimBL's that is
> not enough.

I don't think we need to fight that war to get as far as agreeing on the 
spirit of the Self-describing Web finding: when you receive a response from 
HTTP, you should be able to find all the specifications necessary for its 
correct interpretation by starting with RFC 3986 and the URI (which in most 
cases will be the Request-URI, but perhaps in some others a returned 
Content-location).

I'm trying to get agreement that good solutions to httpRange-14 should have 
that characteristic. Note that I did not use the word "representation" or 
"description" in this description of the desiderata. If they prove to be 
pertinent in correctly characterizing some HTTP results, so be it. If not, 
then we use whatever terms prove more helpful.

I was not trying to say anything subtle about representations in my earlier 
e-mail, though that is the term used in the SDW finding. The point is that 
HTTP responses should be self-describing.

Noah

Received on Friday, 30 March 2012 18:24:06 UTC