NamespacesAreResources.html
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<title>
Dictionaries in the Library?! Commentary on Web Architecture
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<p>
<em>This is light-hearted contribtion was written for and
performed at the May 2000 W3C AC meeting dinner. At the time
a debate had been raging at which one of the questions at
stake was whether an XML namespace should be considered a web
resource.</em>
</p>
<h3>
Commentary on Web Architecture
</h3>
<p>
<a href="Overview.html">Up to Design Issues</a>
</p>
<hr />
<h1>
Dictionaries in the Library?
</h1>
<p>
In his book <q>Goedel, Escher, Bach,</q> the computer
scientist Douglas Hofstadter ruminates on self-referential
systems. At times, he uses the approach of a Socratic
dialogue between two characters from Xeno's fable,
<q>Achilles and the Tortoise</q>. The conclusion of several
hundred pages of musings around Bach's fugues, Escher's
recusive drawings, and Goedel's theorem are that you can't
try to distinuish <em>wishes</em> from <em>metawishes</em>,
or the whole system breaks down. Without drawing too many
parallels with the recent XML-URI discusssions, we would like
to relate a conversaion between Achilles and the famous
tortoise, recently overheard in a library.
</p>
<p>
<em>[Achilles and the Tortoise are each strolling in the
library. They meet.]</em>
</p>
<p class="a">
Achilles: Ah, Mr. Tortoise, I thought I might find you in the
library
</p>
<p class="t">
T: And a very nice library it is too, Achilles.
</p>
<p class="a">
A: Thank you. It was a communal effort. As were the books.
There are so many really beautiful books in the library.
</p>
<p class="t">
T: And now we have dictionaries!
</p>
<p class="a">
A: Yes, dictionaries are very important to me, Mr.. Tortoise.
I want to use them to understand what some of those books
mean.
</p>
<p class="t">
T: Let's not discuss meaning, please Achilles -- you know
what happens when we do that! I want to use these
dictionaries in order to check that the books are correct.
</p>
<p class="a">
A: Well, at least we are agreed that dictionaries are a good
idea.
</p>
<p>
<em>[they round a corner]</em>
</p>
<p class="t">
T: Achilles, what is that?!
</p>
<p class="a">
A: Why, a dictionary, Mr. T.
</p>
<p class="t">
T: But it is in the library! I thought when we defined
dictionaries we agreed it was "not a goal" to register
dictionaries in the library!
</p>
<p class="a">
A: But surely that doesn't stop me putting one in the
library?
</p>
<p class="t">
T: Irony heaped on Irony! The Library is for books. That you
should abuse it so! A dictionary is not a book. It is a
metabook.
</p>
<p class="a">
A: What? Of course it is book!
</p>
<p class="t">
T: You said that you wanted it have the form of a book so we
make them out of paper -- but that doesn't mean the intent
was to put it in the library!
</p>
<p class="a">
A: But this is my section of the library -- it is the section
on Library Architecture and I need a dictionary to define the
terms used in that field.
</p>
<p class="t">
T: But you know that people can loose things in a library,
and libraries can burn down ... there are so many reasons
that dictionaries should <strong>not</strong> be in the in
the library, Achilles!
</p>
<p class="a">
A: Look at this way, Mr. Tortoise: when I am doing research
in the library, I need to be able to look up words, and so I
need a dictionary in the library.
</p>
<p class="t">
T: You have some woolly notion of finding out what books
mean, Achilles, but we haven't agreed about that. The meaning
of the semantics of "meaning" are not a consensus in current
linguistic epistemorthosemantisophologic theory.
</p>
<p class="a">
A: I don't need to go into that, but I need a place for
dictionaries.
</p>
<p class="t">
T: Oh, we have all been discussing where dictionaries should
go. We have plenty of ideas: We have plans for a new vault
building down the road much more secure than this library. We
have that white tower on the hill we could use too.
</p>
<p class="t">
T: Besides, in practice, most of us keep a pocket dictionary
for each language we use in our briefcases. It isn't as
though we need so many dictionaries. Frankly, dictionaries
have such different requirements to books I am shocked to see
this dictionary in your section of the library! If you don't
take it out out, I will bite your heel.
</p>
<p class="a">
A: But I thought when we designed the library it was so that
any sort of book could go in it. That is why we called it the
Global Eternal Bibliotech, after all: it is Good for Every
Book. I should be able to keep this dictionary in it simply
because it is a book.
</p>
<p class="t">
T: But Achilles, for the last time, a dictionary is
<strong>not a book</strong>!
</p>
<hr />
<address>
<p>
With apologies & thanks to Douglas Hofstadter for
taking us through the fun (and inevitability) of
self-referential systems. Thanks to Ian Jacobs for playing
Achilles at the dinner.
</p>
</address>
<address>
<p>
Tim Berners-Lee
</p>
</address>
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