Re: Debating on the usefulness of supporting a) Stateful Web Service Instances b) Stateful Interaction

Hi Marco,

On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 03:15:22PM +0200, marco wrote:
> Today standard web services don't support:
> a) The concept of stateful service instance
> b) Stateful interaction 
> -  Object passing, neither by value nor by reference

[snip]

> Would it be appropriate for web service standards to support a) and b) ?

They already do support it, by virtue of the architecture not placing any
constraints on stateful vs. stateless services or interactions.

> Is it appropriate for the web service community to implement a) and b)
> or is that a wrong OO mindset that we should abandon ?

I'd say both are already pervasive.

a) seems obvious to me; most Web services maintain some state.
(unless I misunderstood what you meant)

b) is less obvious, but most Web services interfaces I've seen are
stateful.  I believe this is attributable to the simple fact that it
takes effort to design stateless interfaces, whereas stateful interfaces
are the default.

> In this debate, I see the following main positions, please do suggest
> others:
> 
> -ab:  a) and b) must never be performed, not even in custom ways. 
> 
> -a :  b) can be performed in custom ways, but not a)
> 
>  0 :  a) and b) can be performed, but only in custom ways
> 
> +b :  Web service standards should support b), but not a)
> 
> +ab:  Web service standards should support both a) and b)
> 
> 
> My position is currently close to +b, please cast your vote ;)
> Marco
> 
> 
> 
> PS:
> I have not included a) but not b) positions, because I think that if
> full a) support is provided, 
> then a form of b) must exist. But one could debate on this too ;)

I disagree, and see them as entirely orthogonal.  So I'd be
all for a), but I have a preference to not support b) - though
I could live with it.

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