Re: Comments on the SPARQL protocol

> First, only one concrete protocol is provided (HTTP), which, in our
> opinion, doesn't exercise the abstract protocol sufficiently to give
> confidence that it can serve its intended purpose (see our fourth point
> below too).
[...]

Thanks for the careful review. The WG has been discussing
pretty much the same topic...

[[
Regarding the Abstract protocol, DanC noted that it comes with a testing
obligation; if we're only going to test one concrete protocol, we should
fold the essential material from the abstract protocol into it. He later
clarified that it would be OK if a second concrete protocol (SOAP,
SMTP, ...) were not normatively specified, but only specified in a Note
or even only in the test materials; as long as the abstract protocol
"hook" is tested, we've met our obligations.

postscript: this bit of SpecGL seems relevant, though not exactly the
"untested hooks are bad" bumper-sticker I'd like to see:

        Make sure there is a need for the optional feature. 
        4.2 Good Practice A: in 4. Managing Variability of SpecGL 

Kendall suggested that we get involved in a SOAP binding, since it's
likely to happen anyway and might not turn out the way we want unless we
get involved. EricP noted SOAP mappings to HTTP GET; that is WSDL
support for GET that returns a SOAP envelope. DanC wondered if the SOAP
data model could express query results (set of pairs...); a quick
investigation was inconclusive. ACTION EricP: to inviestigate WSDL/SOAP
encodings of SPARQL protocol.
]]
 -- SPARQL Protocol Spec item
 in RDF Data Access Working Group Meeting, 19-20 January 2005
  $Revision: 1.48 $ minutes in progress@@ 
  of $Date: 2005/02/02 19:04:25 $
 http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/ftf4.html#item08


Please stay tuned for future WDs etc. for further developments.


-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
D3C2 887B 0F92 6005 C541  0875 0F91 96DE 6E52 C29E

Received on Wednesday, 2 February 2005 19:34:41 UTC