Resource

A resource is an abstract entity that represents information.

A resource can represent any information in a computer system - music, the chapter of a book, a customer, an image, the result of a database query. Resources are naturally composed of other resources just as a book is composed of chapters and an online discussion forum is composed of subject areas, topics, and entries.

A resource is abstract - it is the conceptual notion about information. For example, the resource "attendee-list" could represent the list of people signed up to attend a conference. At a particular moment there may be one, ten, or a hundred people in the attendee list but the concept of the list does not change.

In NetKernel resource are identified by an address. Each address locates a resource within an address space of all possible resources.

When NetKernel is asked to source a resource it returns an snapshot of the state of the resource in the form of a representation. While resources are abstract, representations are concrete and can be cached, used by clients, passed to services, etc.