The word ‘Resource’
An excerpt from Morgan Kaufmann’s book ‘Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist’:
In the Semantic Web we refer to the things in the world as resources; a resource can be anything that someone might want to talk about. Shakespeare, Stratford, “the value of X,” and “all the cows in Texas” are all examples of things someone might talk about and that can be resources in the Semantic Web. This is admittedly a pretty odd use of the word resource, but alternatives like entity or thing, which might be more accurate, have their own issues. In any case, resource is the word used in the Semantic Web standards. In fact, the name of the base technology in the Semantic Web (RDF) uses this word in an essential way. RDF stands for Resource Description Framework.
What I think:
The word ‘Resource’ might have been used in the Semantic Web Standards continuing the World Wide Web tradition. To use a different word was anyway uncalled for when people have already gotten used to terms like URL & URI in which Resource is inherent.
But, probably, why this word crept into the very first standards is because of the human psyche. We consider everything as some kind of a resource, a-thing-of-use. It has now narrowed down further to mean a-thing-of-economic-value or a-consumable. To us things are just not things, they are either resources or non-resources.
Definition of the word Resource from answers.com:
- Something that can be used for support or help: The local library is a valuable resource.
- An available supply that can be drawn on when needed. Often used in the plural.
- The ability to deal with a difficult or troublesome situation effectively; initiative: a person of resource.
- Means that can be used to cope with a difficult situation. Often used in the plural: needed all my intellectual resources for the exam.
- resources The total means available for economic and political development, such as mineral wealth, labor force, and armaments.
- resources The total means available to a company for increasing production or profit, including plant, labor, and raw material; assets.
- Such means considered individually.
For posts that are techy / matters a little grey that I din't want to be drowning in randomness.
