- From: Drew McDermott <drew.mcdermott@yale.edu>
- Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 23:20:13 -0500
- To: public-sws-ig@w3.org
> [Shi, Xuan]
> ... I know I said something different from the others. Such as what is
> service composition? My definition is different from the so-called
> "standard" meaning, but I think it is more realistic and understandable for
> all users who are not programmers and AI professionals to consume Web
> services.
This admission is simply astonishing. I pointed this discrepancy out
to Xuan months ago in private correspondence. The SW community
disagrees about many aspects of the "service composition problem," but
everyone agrees it involves computers doing some sort of combination
of solutions of small web-service problems in order to solve bigger
problems. Because the English word "compose" is ambiguous, and
because Xuan came into this area as an outsider, he originally thought
it meant human composition of web-service requests (as one would
compose an SQL request, for instance). An honest misunderstanding.
But it is not an acceptable response to such a revelation to continue
to use the semi-standard term in one's nonstandard way. To do so is
to guarantee that any discussion using the term will be meaningless,
chaotic, and ultimately acrimonious. (The more so if there are
_other_ terms that are being used in nonstandard ways; who knows?)
I don't see why anyone would pursue this any further.
--
-- Drew McDermott
Yale University
Computer Science Department
Received on Friday, 17 March 2006 04:17:08 UTC