[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Are URIs Resources? (WAS RE: Re: Non-infoset)
Fun indeed. So by this definition, the URI itself is not part of the information space(s) of the WWW (it is not a single information space because some identified resources can have multiple simultaneous states) and by definition, a URI cannot identify another URI; therefore, information in a URI is not in any information space that can be identified by another URI. http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm#sec_5 _2_1_1 "The only thing that is required to be static for a resource is the semantics of the mapping, since the semantics is what distinguishes one resource from another." 'and now we entangle the audience...' Then the only thing that a URI cannot identify ambiguously is a semantic because the semantic is the invariant property of the resource which enables it to be identified (by definition). The URI is meaningless to the reader (opaque: not information bearing) but meaningful to the writer (information conveying). (Sure that is absurd to a human who can clearly see what is meant but we are in spec abstraction land here.) Try this: The writer has a relative view (Boolean, local, deterministic, discrete unique states). The reader has a quantum view (Lattice, non-local, non-deterministic, continuous and therefore, multiple simultaneous states). Because the logical operations of joins in these two types of logic return different sets, http ranges are ambiguous until measured. Only the operation of dereferencing settles the state for any URI for which there can be multiple simultaneous states. Observation/measurement collapses the wavefront for the observer. It DOES NOT mean the observer/reader understands the writer's intention, only the reader's interpretation of the measurement/observation. I never thought quantum theory would help me decide anything. I was wrong. :-) len From: Jan Algermissen [mailto:jalgermissen@t...] Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote: >That's the critical observation for this and many other >threads that rely on ontological commitment to sustain >communications. > >Would anyone care to compare that to URIs as a unit of >information: > > Personally, I go with the definition of Resource and Resource Identifier provided by Roy: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm#sec_5 _2_1_1 as soon as I had started doing that, all the confusion suddenly ended and I have never ever had any problems with that decision. I believe that a technology itself gets to define what their 'elements' are and not whoever uses the technology. A nice example of this is XTM (Topic Maps applied to XML/Web) which implicitly makes the assumption that URIs allways identify Documents (aka 'addressable subjects') and NEVER!! abstract concepts (aka 'non-addressable subjects'). How can a technology (Topic Maps) that *uses* terms and infrastructure of another technology re-define the terms? Makes no sense to me. >1. Is a URI a resource? > > No. >2. If it is a resource, what operations are significant? > >3. Are URIs ever ambiguous? > > > Do you mean: "Can URIs ever be used ambiguous?" ?? The string itself cannot really 'be ambigous', I'd say. >Yes, I know: the permathread from hell. > > > So much fun :o) Jan >len > >From: Alessandro Triglia [mailto:sandro@m...] > >The writer makes choices, but a reader cannot always tell which of those >choices (if any) convey some semantics in the intentions of the writer and >which do not. In other words, an XML document may contain more information >than the writer considers significant, but a given reader may not be able to >separate the non-significant part from the significant part.
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