Re: WS-Addr issues

On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 10:09:41PM +0600, Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
> 
> To me, wsa:Action is like the Subject: header of email. Clearly
> the recipient can figure out the subject from the email most
> likely, but we all put subjects to help the receiver "dispatch."
> The subject tells the receive what the message is about and hence
> implies to him/her what to do with it. wsa:Action plays the same
> role IMO.
> 
> Do people think RFC822 was wrong to define a subject header?

Clearly. 8-)

But seriously, aren't you concerned that everybody seems to think
that wsa:Action is something different?  We've got the GED, wsa:Action,
the WSDL operation name mapping requirement, and WSDL's operation
style, all vying to have some say in describing service and/or message
semantics.  It's a mess, and interop is not being served by there
being such a mess.

If wsa:Action is the annointed mechanism that's going to clean up that
mess, I'm all for that, but IMO, that's going to require calling a
spade a spade, and not dodging the hard questions.

Does wsa:Action indicate the operation or not?  If not, what does it
indicate, and how does that contribute to the semantics of the message?
If yes, how does it relate to the underlying protocol method, the GED,
the WSDL style, WSDL operation name, and WSDL operation name mapping?
Or, if wsa:Action is sometimes an operation and sometimes not, what
else can it be, and what tells a recipient of a message what it is for
a given message or service?  Operation style?  Something else?

Mark.

> 
> Sanjiva.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Baker" <distobj@acm.org>
> To: <paul.downey@bt.com>
> Cc: <public-ws-addressing@w3.org>
> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 9:36 PM
> Subject: Re: WS-Addr issues
> 
> 
> >
> > On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 10:54:28AM -0000, paul.downey@bt.com wrote:
> > > Jim
> > >
> > > > Certainly the utility company does not stick an action on the envelope
> > > > like"urn:pay:up:or:supply:will:be:cut" which is the function of
> was:action.
> > >
> > > my electricity bill is sent to "accounts department",  "Southern Gas*,
> London"
> > > "accounts department" being the action in this case.
> >
> > Paul - why isn't the action "Southern Gas, accounts department" with the
> > address "London"?  Or "Southern Gas, accounts department, London" and
> > the address "U.K"?  Or "Joe-the-A/R-guy", "accounts department, ..."?
> > You get my drift, I hope.
> >
> > I suggest to you that what you described is the address, not an action.
> > The action, in the case of bill payment, is implicit and could be
> > described as perhaps "process this", "accept this", "DATA"[1],
> > "POST"[2][3], or any other generic/uniform semantic you might care to
> > name.
> >
> >  [1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt
> >  [2] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc977.txt
> >  [3] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt
> >
> > Mark.
> > -- 
> > Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca
> 
> 

-- 
Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca

Received on Friday, 5 November 2004 16:47:51 UTC