RE: FW: LC Comments: Web Method Feature (really: REST & SOAP)

> I think we all agree that HTTP should be the basis for new 
> technologies.
> The question is whether they are *new layers* or *new extensions*.

Paul, I must say that your message is one of the most concise 
and lucid explanations of this viewpoint. I don't agree with it, 
but I can now much better appreciate its logic.

I think one difference is that XML & XHTML can be part of the 
same world, consumed by the same clients. The whole point of 
HTML, content-negotiation and browsers gracefully falling back 
to LCD is that the consumers are the same -- so the nature of 
layering is important. To use the <P> example, you could have 
something like <P author="john"> and <P author="joe">, and all
browsers could still make sense of it -- and some could take 
advantage of the "author" attribute. This kind of extensibility 
is important.

However, the target for HTTP-transported web services isn't 
the same as HTML browsers. It's a bit like streaming video 
-- OK, yes, you can transport it over HTTP, but it requires 
totally different functionality and there's no graceful 
'fallback' for an HTML-only browser -- but even more so, where
at least with HTML & video you still have a person consuming 
the data, but with web services it's a server-to-server comlink.


\\ Eugene Kuznetsov
\\ eugene@datapower.com
\\ DataPower Technology, Inc.

Received on Sunday, 7 July 2002 22:34:15 UTC