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Re: Re: Why REST? (RE: WSIO- With Name)

• To: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>
• Subject: Re: Re: Why REST? (RE: WSIO- With Name)
• From: John Cowan <cowan@m...>
• Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 17:07:31 -0500 (EST)
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <3C698AFD.7D45C7F2@p...> from Paul Prescod at "Feb 12, 200201:37:01 pm"

Paul Prescod scripsit:

> > Absolutely.  But a person is not a hyperdocument, even if they may
> > sometimes share the same representations. 
> 
> You yourself a minute ago said that this use/mention is not an issue.
> I'm lost.

Not at all.  I said that I, as well as my home page, could be labeled
with a URI.  But labeling me and my home page with the *same* URI
leads to contradictions.  For example, the year of creation of my
home page is 1998 or thereabouts, whereas *my* year of creation is
1958 or thereabouts.

> Ignoring topic maps and RDFs ... we can assert that the URI identifies
> YOU and that links to the URI are links to YOU. We can also say that you
> may have whatever representation there you think is a sufficient
> representation of you, including a 404 page. Where do you think that
> there is a problem with this view.

It just staggers me to think that anyone could suffer from such ontological
confusion as to believe that he is identical with some hyperdocument.
If (neglecting security) someone connects to www.ccil.org:80 and issues
the directive "DELETE /~cowan/", do you think that I would drop dead?
Plainly not.

The URI "http://www.ccil.org/~cowan/" labels my home page, and my home
page can be used to *indicate* me, but it is *not* me, any more than
an encyclopedia entry about Shakespeare, or a the text of a play by
Shakespeare, really *is* Shakespeare.

If you want to say that by convention "http://www.ccil.org/~cowan" refers
to me-as-a-resource, then I ask you, what is the URI for my-home-page-as
-a-resource?  And as I have already demonstrated, my home page and I have
different values for properties that can be truly asserted of us, so
we cannot be identical.

-- 
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@c...
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_

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