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8/13/2002 10:12:32 AM, Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net> wrote:
>This is XML-DEV, not ws-arch. We're not making legal judgements. If Tim
>Berners-Lee and Roy Fielding are not "authoritative" on the topic of web
>architecture then I suppose the Wrights were not authoritative on the
>topic of airplane design.
It was the assertion "It isn't Web architecture if it doesn't
use obey the constraints discussed here" that motivated my
response. Anyway, "Revered pioneers" are not necessarily
"authoritative" once a technology gets off the ground,
so to speak. Subsequent innovators didn't worry too much
about what the Wright brothers might have thought
about the "aereonautical correctness" of their designs, AFAIK.
Furthermore, as I understand it, far from being authoritative,
the most interesting question about the Wrights these days is
how the original flyer could have ever stayed aloft, given that
its design was so contrary to subsequent theory and practice.
One might be tempted dig for an analogy with the RESTifarian
principle that cookies are evil with the actual practice of
most commercial websites .... <grin>
So, we can study and give honor to the pioneering thoughts
expressed in the TimBL and Fielding documents without accepting
that anything violating their constraints is not part of
the "Web architecture". Let's talk about the web as it is,
and learn from what works, whether or not the reality was
what was envisioned by the pioneers.
Again, my humble and personal opinion.
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