RE: proposed revision text for sect 1.5.3

I believe that the "partially" refers to the concept, made very explicit
by the Booth diagrams, that a full description of the Web service
involves not only a machine readable component but also other
information that David calls "semantics".  If I am correct, I think that
this is an important concept to keep in mind and to have clearly
documented.  However, the fact that you obviously interpreted the word
differently means that, even if I am correct about the intention, it
needs to be spelled out more clearly.

While we are talking about clarity, I have to admit that I do not
understand at all the second of your two long sentences.  (The one that
starts "It also specifies ...").  I don't get it either grammatically or
conceptually.  I think that at the least it needs some wordsmithing.

Finally, it seems that you are trying to be more precise, but it ends up
pretty heavy reading.  The phrase that you are objecting to you is,
admitedly, imprecise but it is easy reading.  Perhaps one could devise a
combination of these approaches -- like the sentence you don't like
followed by verbiage along the lines you are suggesting?

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher B Ferris [mailto:chrisfer@us.ibm.com] 
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2003 9:12 AM
To: www-ws-arch@w3.org
Subject: proposed revision text for sect 1.5.3



All,

I am not thrilled with the current prose in section 1.5.3 which reads:

<current>
1.5.3 Service Description
The mechanics of the message exchange are (partially) documented in a 
Web service description (WSD). (See Figure 1.) The service description 
is a machine processable specification of the message formats, 
datatypes and protocols that should be used between the requester 
agent and the provider agent. It also specifies the network location 
of the provider agent, and may provide some information about the 
message exchange pattern that is expected.
</current>

I would offer the following substitution text:

<proposed>
1.5.3 Service Description
The mechanics of the message exchange are documented in a 
Web service description (WSD). (See Figure 1.) The WSD is an extensible 
machine 
processable specification of the message infosets and features that 
comprise
the Web service's interface and the binding(s) of those message infosets

and features to the serialization format(s) and transfer or transport 
protocol(s) 
supported by the Web service's endpoint(s). It also specifies the 
set of endpoints that each expose a network addressable binding to a 
specific serialization format and transport or transfer protocol of the 
Web service interface to the service functionality implemented by the 
provider agent. 
</proposed>

First off, I thought that the parenthetical "(partially)" was
unnecessary 
for our 
purposes and somewhat derogatory towards WSDL which is still being
developed and yet which is IMO sufficiently extensible to allow whatever
might be missing to be added to the WSD by means of the extensibility
points.

Secondly, I was uncomfortable with "the specification of the formats, 
datatypes,
and protocols..." as being somewhat vague and imprecise.

Comments?

Cheers,

Christopher Ferris
STSM, Emerging e-business Industry Architecture
email: chrisfer@us.ibm.com
phone: +1 508 234 3624

Received on Saturday, 31 May 2003 15:06:42 UTC