[OSGeo-Standards] Was: "file" formats. Is: GeoWeb

[Rushforth, Peter]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for entertaining this discussion.

> hm, then we are out of the world of imagery - links embedded 
> in NetCDF files is not the use case we have.

Can NetCDF conceivably contain (recognizable) hyperlinks?  If not, 
could the http response include the link header [1] ?  From what
I understand, the headers can be considered part of the hypertext,
although at that point you are working at the protocol level,
which is a bit more opaque to users, hence probably won't scale
as easily because it requires more elaborate tooling.

Alternatively, a response formated as Atom [2], [3] could provide a hypertext
base for responses.


> Actually, this view of the Web at large points to 
> graph-oriented structures - one of the core data structures 
> relevant in our times. 

Yes!  This is how/why the Web works!  Note that in the WebArch document
I mentioned earlier, they credit this as being perhaps dominant reason
for the web's success.  I would also say simplicity is a factor,
per the rule of least power. [4]

> However, another fundamental structure 
> is that of a multi-dimensional array. This structure is not 
> supported very much these days.

Well I won't be able to contribute meaningfully on that level ;-)

But, I have confidence that hypertext can stretch to accomodate that
concept too, if necessary.

Regards,
Peter

[1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5988
[2] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5023
[3] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4287
[4] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/leastPower.html

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Baumann, Peter [mailto:p.baumann at jacobs-university.de] 
> Sent: July 11, 2013 11:55
> To: Rushforth, Peter
> Cc: Raj Singh; standards at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Standards] Was: "file" formats. Is: GeoWeb
> 
> hm, then we are out of the world of imagery - links embedded 
> in NetCDF files is not the use case we have.

> Actually, this view of the Web at large points to 
> graph-oriented structures - one of the core data structures 
> relevant in our times. 

However, another fundamental structure 
> is that of a multi-dimensional array. This structure is not 
> supported very much these days.
> 
> -Peter
> 
> 
> --
> Dr. Peter Baumann- Professor of Computer Science, Jacobs 
> University Bremen
>   http://www.faculty.jacobs-university.de/pbaumann
>   mail: p.baumann at jacobs-university.detel: +49-421-200-3178, 
> fax: +49-421-200-493178
> - Executive Director, rasdaman GmbH Bremen (HRB 
> 26793)http://www.rasdaman.com,
>   mail: baumann at rasdaman.com
>   tel: 0800-rasdaman, fax: 0800-rasdafax, mobile: 
> +49-173-5837882 "Si forte in alienas manus oberraverit hec 
> peregrina epistola incertis ventis dimissa, sed Deo 
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: Rushforth, Peter [Peter.Rushforth at NRCan-RNCan.gc.ca]
> Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 5:26 PM
> To: Baumann, Peter
> Cc: Raj Singh; standards at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Standards] Was: "file" formats.  Is: GeoWeb
> 
> >
> > now I'm puzzled - so you say REST = http,
> 
> No, I don't.
> 
> > and any http
> > request is RESTful?
> 
> No:  Hypertext is the key ingredient in REST.  It doesn't 
> matter what the protocol is, in fact, if the links are 
> embedded in hypertext.  And, what matters is that the links 
> represent *relationships* between resources.  Not the format 
> of the link itself.
> 
> Does that help?
> 
> Cheers,
> Peter
>