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Re: URIs are simply names was: Re: "Abstract"URIs

• To: XML DEV <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: URIs are simply names was: Re: "Abstract"URIs
• From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>
• Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 09:51:32 -0800
• References: <B892A842.E7FE%patrick.stickler@n...>

Patrick Stickler wrote:
> 
> On 2002-02-14 17:37, "ext Paul Prescod" <paul@p...> wrote:
> 
> > Patrick Stickler wrote:
> >>
> >> ...
> >>
> >> The problem here is that if I dereference some URI expecting to
> >> access that actual resource, and get some metadata or RDDL document
> >> or something else in its place, how do I necessarily know that
> >> that is *not* in fact the resource?
> >
> > You never, ever, ever get the actual resource. So it's easy to know. ;)
> 
> This is hardly a consensus view.

It is the Web Architecture. 

http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Generic.html

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html

You can argue that it should not be. But it is.

>...
> A mistake? Is the concept of the language "English" ever going
> to be a GETable resource? Nope.

Resources are never GETable. But I could see a representation of English
being GET-able. Perhaps a Web document pointing to a grammar, a
dictionary etc. Of course those are not a complete representation of
everything that English is. But they are nevertheless a representation.

>...
> The (ab)use of URLs for namespaces with the expectation that they
> should resolve to anything -- based on some non-standard attribution
> of significance to that namespace such as denoting a vocabulary or
> schema -- is a hack. It may be a clever hack, but it's a hack
> nonetheless.

I see no problem with having human readable documentation as the
representation of the namespace resource. I do agree that using HTTP
URIs causes quite a bit of confusion for people who think that the
representation is the resource, which is most people. So it is somewhat
an argument of theory versus practice.

 Paul Prescod

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: URIs are simply names was: Re: "Abstract"URIs
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

• References:
  • Re: URIs are simply names was: Re: "Abstract"URIs
    • From: Patrick Stickler <patrick.stickler@n...>

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