RE: REST, Conversations and Reliability

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Burdett, David [mailto:david.burdett@commerceone.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 10:07 PM
> To: 'Paul Prescod'; David Orchard; www-ws-arch@w3.org
> Subject: RE: REST, Conversations and Reliability
> 
>
> 
> Chris, as chair, is it possible for a vote to be taken to 
> determine whether
> we base our architecture on SOAP or base it on REST?

We would be doing the industry a dis-service to frame it that way.  Clearly
SOAP 1.2 has learned a lot from REST.    On the other hand, REST will not
make an impact until it has the kind of tool and vendor support that SOAP
has, and the best way to do that is probably to leverage SOAP as much as
possible. 

Our challenge --which is a big one, but we KNEW that when we signed up for
the job, eh? -- is to describe a set of architectural components and
relationships that learn from the SOAP world of program-to-program
communication and the Web world of robust and scaleable hypertext.  

Paul Prescod talked about starting with a SOAPy orchestration framework aand
having it "enhanced by applying some REST discipline."  That's the spirit we
need here in order to succeed. I honestly haven't looked at either the BEA
framework or Paul's critique well enough to have a substantive opinion, but
I like the idea of "enhancing" one perspective with the discipline of the
other.  "Enhancing" the Web with SOAP-based reliabilty, transaction,
orchestration, description, etc. might be another way to envision the way
forward.

It seems clear that the industry won't accept a WSA that doesn't  leverage
SOAP, and the W3C staff/director/TAG clearly won't accept a WSA that doesn't
build on the Web.  We have to collectively un-think the thought of one or
the other winning, and visualize how they can enhance each other.

Sorry if this sounds like the drivel on those motivational posters one sees
in most offices these days, but that's the simple reality as I see it!

Received on Thursday, 18 July 2002 00:24:33 UTC