On 6/13/11 6:52 AM, Pat Hayes wrote:
OK, I am now completely and utterly lost. I have no idea what you are saying or
how any of it is relevant to the http-range-14 issue. Want to try running it
past me again? Bear in mind that I do not accept your claim that a description
of something is in any useful sense isomorphic to the thing it describes. As
in, some RDF describing, say, the Eiffel tower is not in any way isomorphic to
the actual tower. (I also do not understand why you think this claim matters,
by the way.)
Perhaps we are understanding the meaning of http-range-14 differently. My
understanding of it is as follows: if an HTTP GET applied to a bare URI http:x
returns a 200 response, then http:x is understood to refer to (to be a name
for, to denote) the resource that emitted the response.
No, 200 OK means this URI is functionally an Address i.e., a place
that's ready to transmit the byte stream associated with the Address.
Hence, it follows that if a URI is intended to refer to something else, it
has to emit a different response, and a 303 redirect is appropriate.
When the functionality of the URI changes i.e., its a Name rather than
an Address, courtesy of de-reference (indirection), there is a 303
redirect (an act of indirection).
It also follows that in the 200 case, the thing denoted has to be the kind of
thing that can possibly emit an HTTP response,
Yes, a data server indicates to a client that a given Address is
functional i.e., I'll transmit you a byte stream from this place which I
crafted for this specific purpose.
thereby excluding a whole lot of things, such as dogs, from being the
referent in such cases.
Yes, if the response is 200 OK since the URI is an Address. No if the
response is a 303 since the URI is a Name.
It still boils down to the URI abstraction which ingeniously caters for
two vital data access by reference operations: Name (for de-reference
and indirection) and Address (for Data Access).
Kingsley
Pat
On Jun 12, 2011, at 6:46 PM, Danny Ayers wrote:
On 13 June 2011 02:28, Pat Hayes<[email protected]> wrote:
Next point: there can indeed be correspondences between the syntactic structure
of a description and the aspects of reality it describes.
That is what I was calling isomorphism (which I still don't think was
inaccurate). But ok, say there are correspondences instead. I would
suggest that those correspondences are enough to allow the description
to take the place of a representation under HTTP definitions.
But I don't think all this is really germane to the http-range-14 issue. The
point there is, does the URI refer to something like a representation
(information resource, website, document, RDF graph, whatever) or something
which definitely canNOT be sent over a wire?
I'm saying conceptually it doesn't matter if you can put it over the
wire or not.
But replace "a novel written by a dog" for "dog" in the above. Why
should the concept of a document be fundamentally any different from
the concept of a dog, hence representations of a document and
representations of a dog?
I dont follow your point here. If you mean, a document is just as real as a
dog, I agree. So? But if you mean, there is no basic difference between a
document and a dog, I disagree. And so does my cat.
Difference sure, but not necessarily relevant.
Ok, you can squeeze something over the wire
that represents "a novel written by a dog" but you (probably) can't
squeeze a "dog" over, but that's just a limitation of the protocol.
So improved software engineering will enable us to teleport dogs over the
internet? Come on, you don't actually believe this.
It would save a lot of effort sometimes (walkies!) but all I'm
suggesting is that if, hypothetically, you could teleport matter over
the internet, all you'd be looking at as far as http-range-14 is
concerned is another media type. Working back from there, and given
correspondences as above, a descriptive document can be a valid
representation of the identified resource even if it happens to be an
actual thing, given that there isn't necessary any "one true"
representation. We don't need the Information Resource distinction
here (useful elsewhere maybe).
Cheers,
Danny.
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