- From: Stefan Tilkov <stefan.tilkov@innoq.com>
- Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 23:04:06 +0200
- To: Mark Baker <distobj@acm.org>
- Cc: public-web-http-desc@w3.org
On Jun 15, 2005, at 5:48 AM, Mark Baker wrote: > > Hi Stefan, > > On Tue, Jun 14, 2005 at 07:39:14AM +0200, Stefan Tilkov wrote: > >> Mark Pilgrim (http://diveintomark.org/projects) has numerous small >> Python wrappers around popular "Web APIs". They don't do much you >> couldn't do yourself, but they still provide a simplified view that >> makes them very easy to use. >> >> Code like this is IMO the standard example of what one could have >> generated from a machine-readable description. >> > > Really? I wouldn't have thought so. Let's take a closer look... > > In PyAmazon[1] for example, I see code which basically hides the HTTP > interface from a developer behind a custom API of "browseBestSellers", > "searchBy*", and "searchSimilar" operations. While this API may very > well be useful for developers, it's not something that a service > provider will provide, since they have no stake in what particular > local API any consumer of their service uses. > But if you want to generate code from the service description - and I'm not arguing for it, just pointing out the options - there will be some abstract description of what interactions (to avoid the term 'operations') are possible, and what data is being exchanged. I can use this description dynamically, e.g. to render a UI, or I can use some generic API (like an HTTP lib and an XML parser) to access it, or use a code generation approach to map HTTP's semantics and the description to some programming API variant suitable for my environment. I just don't see why the description published by the provider would be influenced by the local decision of some consumer. > I mean, I assume that instances of this description language we're > talking about, would be something that service developers would > publish, > right? > Absolutely. Best regards, Stefan > [1] http://www.josephson.org/projects/pyamazon/ > > Mark. > -- > Mark Baker. Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA. http://www.markbaker.ca > Coactus; Web-inspired integration strategies http://www.coactus.com > > >
Received on Wednesday, 15 June 2005 21:04:14 UTC