On 11/26/10 12:49 PM, David Booth wrote:

Nathan,

I have a URI. I don't have a URL. A document describing me has a URL. A description has to occur on a surface (Document) otherwise it cannot be perceived by any beholder. The Subject of a description has to be distinct from its projector otherwise beholders are stuck with low- or no-resolution style projection. The Moon can have a URI that indicates its the Subject of a documented description.

There is a trinity that cannot be broken when it comes to structured descriptions: Referent, Identifier, Document . This has been so long before the WWW came into existence.

Real World Entities have always had Identifiers. URIs don't change this reality. That's an accepted fact in a broad range of universes of discourse -- which includes AWWW .

A description of the Moon with a URI for Moon never implies the moon will come zooming out of the Web. It just means: an observer of the Moon can use Attribute=Value pairs to describe the Moon (referent) via a Document by coalescing these Attribute=Value pairs around the Moon's Identifier (Name).

If said observer performs the above in machine readable form, he/she is basically entering into the realm of EAV based structured data. Add hypermedia to the mix re., Documentation medium and we have Linked Data.

I have never read a note by TimBL that's indicated that you can't give URIs to real world objects. Ditto W3C.

I've never encountered any computer literature relating to Distributed Objects or Object Orientation that's indicated Data Objects, Entities, Data Items are devoid of Identity.

"Resource" overloading bug continues to haunt Semantic Web and Linked Data communications and comprehension :-)

Again, we can't break the trinity: Referent, Identifier, Document -- which is the container, disseminator, and projector of Content defined by a Model that is logic based re., hypermedia based structured data.

Roy Fielding wasn't describing Linked Data (Distributed Data Objects) in his famous thesis. He was describing a better approach to Document Oriented Client-Server Middleware via HTTP.

The Document Oriented Middleware vs Remote Procedure Calls Oriented middleware has been raging for eons, long before WWW. This subject matter is a vast realm on to itself re. history. Today, we talk about REST vs SOAP, without always knowing that they're just today's monikers for an age-old battle in the realm of Client-Server Middleware.

Regards,