RE: Issue 6404 - proposal

OK, Doug.  Based on your comments below, we should wait to see your new issue and its resolution before moving forwards on this one.

From: Doug Davis [mailto:dug@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 6:01 PM
To: Geoff Bullen
Cc: public-ws-resource-access@w3.org; public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org
Subject: RE: Issue 6404 - proposal


There are two problems with this. If "no dialect" means "everything I can see" we'd still need to define a dialect for this - not a big deal but, like I said, "no dialect" should just be a short cut for something more explicit/verbose.

But the real issue I have with this is that the definition of the MEX dialect is a bit screwy.  First it seems totally arbitrary.  The dialect URIs defined in MEX aren't really chosen for any particular reason other than they're the list of dialects that the MEX authors just happen to choose when they penned the spec.  Not the most thoughtful approach.  As proof... what does the "policy" dialect mean?  Policy by itself is meaningless.  It needs to be attached to something - like WSDL elements.  And what about the "policyAttachment" dialect?  What metadata does that return?  So, out of the 5 dialects defined in MEX we'd only return 2 - wsdl and xsd.  But even then - what schema are we returning? The xsd of the resource that would be returned by a Transfer Get()? The xsd of the enum items?  The xsd of the events if its an event source? All of these? Some of them? This dialect feels a little like a better defined "whateva" but still pretty useless since after removing all of the meaningless/undefined URIs you're left with just WSDL anyway.

This however does raise another issue.... should people be forced to define a dialect in order to get a bunch of metadata returned?  For a moment let's assume we defined MEX to mean "the dialects defined in the MEX spec" - this one grouping is now well defined and 'special'.  Sure some other spec/profile could do the same thing but since we're talking about a bootstrapping mechanism how do I know whether or not the other side knows about this new special dialect URI?  It seems we should allow for people to define a grouping on the fly and be allowed to specify a list of dialect URIs instead of just one.  I think I've mentioned this before but I think I'll finally get off my duff and actually open an issue this time.  :-)  This would remove the need for a dialect that means "what those crazy MEX author's thought was important even though more than half of those dialects are meaningless" - which means we can go back to my current proposal of having MEX/nodialect == "everything I'm allowed to see".

thanks
-Doug
______________________________________________________
STSM |  Standards Architect  |  IBM Software Group
(919) 254-6905  |  IBM 444-6905  |  dug@us.ibm.com

Geoff Bullen <Geoff.Bullen@microsoft.com>
Sent by: public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org

02/20/2009 07:23 PM

To

Doug Davis/Raleigh/IBM@IBMUS

cc

"public-ws-resource-access@w3.org" <public-ws-resource-access@w3.org>, "public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org" <public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org>

Subject

RE: Issue 6404 - proposal







Doug,
Trying to use your words to describe the two cases we propose, I get the following:
1.      "no dialect" = "everything I'm allowed to see"
2.      "MEX dialect" = just the dialects defined in MEX
This way point 2 remains the same definition as it is now.  It allows a client to return only the MEX dialects if required (rather than all of them), which can be a useful subset grouping.  Point 1 allows the client to return all dialects (including app specific ones).  If there are no application dialects then point 1 and point 2 will return the same thing.
Does that make sense?
--Geoff


From: Doug Davis [mailto:dug@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2009 5:13 PM
To: Geoff Bullen
Cc: public-ws-resource-access@w3.org; public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org
Subject: RE: Issue 6404 - proposal


I think "no dialect" should be a shorthand for something and that 'something' needs to be some dialect.  We can change it from the 'mex' dialect to something else, but since we're talking about a bootstrapping situation where we (as a client) are talking to a bit of an unknown entity (which is why we're using mex in the first place), having the value of "no dialect" be something random doesn't sound like an interoperable solution - we'd be back to the 'whateva' case - which we determined is pretty useless.  I don't see any reason not to have "no dialect" == "the mex dialect" and have the mex dialect mean "everything I'm allowed to see".

thanks
-Doug
______________________________________________________
STSM |  Standards Architect  |  IBM Software Group
(919) 254-6905  |  IBM 444-6905  |  dug@us.ibm.com
Geoff Bullen <Geoff.Bullen@microsoft.com>
Sent by: public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org

02/16/2009 05:26 PM


To

Doug Davis/Raleigh/IBM@IBMUS

cc

"public-ws-resource-access@w3.org" <public-ws-resource-access@w3.org>, "public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org" <public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org>

Subject

RE: Issue 6404 - proposal











Hi Doug,
Our intent is slightly different here.  We would prefer that returning metadata associated with the dialect:

[Body]/mex:GetMetadata/mex:Dialect=http://www.w3.org/2009/02/ws-mex

remain consistent and ONLY ever return metadata associated with dialects defined in the MEX specification.

The changes we suggest would only apply to the default case where no dialect is specified.
In this case it would normally return the same as above, unless it has been redefined by a profile to return something else, including Profile specific metadata dialects.

Does that makes sense?
--Geoff


From: Doug Davis [mailto:dug@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 11:48 AM
To: Geoff Bullen
Cc: public-ws-resource-access@w3.org; public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org
Subject: RE: Issue 6404 - proposal


Geoff,
Actually, the "default value" doesn't change - its the meaning of the MEX dialect, no?
So, we really should be tweaking the other paragraph - the one starting with "barring...".  And doesn't that cover the possibility of someone else further constraining it?

thanks
-Doug
______________________________________________________
STSM |  Standards Architect  |  IBM Software Group
(919) 254-6905  |  IBM 444-6905  |  dug@us.ibm.com
Geoff Bullen <Geoff.Bullen@microsoft.com>
Sent by: public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org

02/10/2009 02:41 PM




To

Doug Davis/Raleigh/IBM@IBMUS, "public-ws-resource-access@w3.org" <public-ws-resource-access@w3.org>

cc

Subject

RE: Issue 6404 - proposal














Doug,
It does not appear that the wording:

"When this element is not present, the implied value is the MEX dialect."

correctly expresses the sentiment that we agreed too earlier.  Can we suggest using something more like:

"When this element is not present, the implied value is the MEX dialect.  However, the actual value may be defined by communities within the context of particular application domains and could include application specific metadata."

--Geoff


From: public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org [mailto:public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Doug Davis
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 5:49 PM
To: public-ws-resource-access@w3.org
Subject: Re: Issue 6404 - proposal


Resending since the html doesn't show up in the archives.

thanks
-Doug
______________________________________________________
STSM |  Standards Architect  |  IBM Software Group
(919) 254-6905  |  IBM 444-6905  |  dug@us.ibm.com

__________________

With no more chatter on this one... here's my proposal:

Define the absence of a Dialect to mean the MEX dialect - something like:
[Body]/mex:GetMetadata/mex:Dialect
   When this element is present, the response MUST include only Metadata Sections with the indicated dialect; if the receiver does not have any Metadata Sections of the indicated dialect, the response MUST include zero Metadata Sections. When this element is not present, the implied value is the MEX dialect.
<delete> there is no implied value and so the response may include Metadata Sections with any dialect. </delete>

And define the MEX dialect - add the following after the above text:
[Body]/mex:GetMetadata/mex:Dialect="http://www.w3.org/2009/02/ws-mex"
   Barring some additional constraints, not defined by this specification, specifying the MEX dialect in a GetMetadata request message means that the service SHOULD return all available metadata formats that this client is allowed to retrieve.

thanks
-Doug
______________________________________________________
STSM |  Standards Architect  |  IBM Software Group
(919) 254-6905  |  IBM 444-6905  |  dug@us.ibm.com
Doug Davis/Raleigh/IBM@IBMUS
Sent by: public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org

01/29/2009 10:11 PM






To

Geoff Bullen <Geoff.Bullen@microsoft.com>

cc

"public-ws-resource-access@w3.org" <public-ws-resource-access@w3.org>, public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org

Subject

Re: Issue 6404 - use of "whatever"

















Along those line, it would seem that saying something like "barring some negotiation, the absence of a Dialect value is equivalent tousing  the MEX dialect".  Gives the freedom for someone to profile it later - but otherwise we make sure "null" is well defined.

thanks
-Doug
______________________________________________________
STSM |  Standards Architect  |  IBM Software Group
(919) 254-6905  |  IBM 444-6905  |  dug@us.ibm.com
Geoff Bullen <Geoff.Bullen@microsoft.com>
Sent by: public-ws-resource-access-request@w3.org

01/29/2009 09:06 PM








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"public-ws-resource-access@w3.org" <public-ws-resource-access@w3.org>

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Subject

Issue 6404 - use of "whatever"
















This issue is about defining the MEX dialect and defining what gets returned.

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=6404

In particular, I was asked to provide an example of why it might be useful, in the case where no dialect is specified in the GetMetadata request, for the service itself to be able to decide what it would return (the so-called "whatever" case).  The other option would be for this case to return all MEX sections.

The best example I can provide for the "whatever" case is this:

If the MEX specification gets "profiled" for a specific purpose, it would be very useful to allow the profile to be able to specify what metadata is to be returned in this default case (especially the non-MEX defined metadata sections).  If you do not do this then each profile would have to define some separate dialect to mean "give me all the metadata within my profile".  Thus the default case gives you an over-loadable definition of "all" or perhaps "normal", which can include non-MEX defined sections.

In a typical profiled case:
Nothing = "return all metadata within my profile"
MEX = "return all MEX dialects"

If it is not a profiled implementation, the spec could be recommend that the implementation return:
Nothing = MEX = "return all MEX dialects"