RE: Comments on WebArch

> 1.2.2: "Clearly, creating an extension language is better for
> interoperability than creating an incompatible language."
> 
> I note that we didn't do that with WSDL :-(.
> 

:-(

> 
> 2.1: "The most straightforward way of establishing that two 
> parties are
> referring to the same Web resource is to compare, as 
> character strings,
> the URIs they are using."
> 
> Double-check that we have a URI-comparison algorithm in place for any
> URIs we need to compare. Double-check our use of relative URIs is
> reasonable and consistent.
> 

On URI comp, I don't think we have to do anything because the scheme defines the comparison function.  For example, an HTTP URI has certain rules that the HTTP spec says.  We can't over-ride those rules.  We did this in xlink, that is have xlink specific rules for comp, but I think that was a bad idea.

> 
> 3.3.1: "Note that one can use a URI with a fragment identifier even if
> one does not have a representation available for interpreting the
> fragment identifier (one can compare two such URIs, for example).
> Parties that draw conclusions about the interpretation of a fragment
> identifier without retrieving a representation do so at their 
> own risk;
> such interpretations are not authoritative."
> 
> This seems to imply that you can compare component 
> designators, but you
> can't safely crack the URI and infer (for example) the type 
> of component
> from it.  Do we need to say anything about that?
> 

argh.  I think you CAN crack the URI IFF the WSDL spec defines how it uses them.  In the same way an HTML browser can populate a URI with FORM parameters because the HTML spec provides an authoritative mapping from FORM to URI query string AND the origin server has chosen to use HTML, a WSDL author can interpret and populate a URI that is contained within a WSDL element IFF the WSDL spec provides authoritative rules for such.

Somebody given an arbitrary URI in a document, say <foo link="somebodysWSDLURI"/> cannot just look at the URI and do interpretation of the URI UNLESS the <foo> vocabulary says "this link attribute IS A wsdl URI".  

> 
> 
> 3.6.1: "Good practice: Available representation - Publishers of a URI
> SHOULD provide representations of the identified resource."
> 
> We pass this advice on to WDSL authors (targetNamespace) and
> feature/extension authors, but do we also need to post docs at each of
> our feature and style URIs?
> 

me thinks so.

> 
> 4.2.2: "Good practice: Namespace policy - Format designers SHOULD
> document change policies for XML namespaces."
> 
> Relates to our versioning issue: How do we allow WSDL users to
> communicate the change policies for their namespaces (even though they
> aren't strictly XML namespaces)?
> 

Why aren't they XML namespaces?  :-)  But seriously, I'm hoping that we will provide the versioning attribute and then this will allow WSDL users to communicate the cp policy.  And even if we don't, we should provide guidance to WSDL authors that they should document what they mean when a namespace name either changes or doesn't under WSDL changes.

Dave

ps. Awesomely pleased to see the ext/vers/ident stuff getting serious wsdl consideration.

Received on Monday, 23 February 2004 16:53:18 UTC