Re: NEW ISSUE: making wsa:Action optional

> "The argument against is that dispatching isn't part of addressing and so
> shouldn't be in this specification;" Really? Last I checked Action is part
> of the spec and part of the charter. Everyone can have their own
definition
> or the scope of this WG, but the charter is pretty clear about this
> particular point.

Paco, without going over old ground, I was asked to write up a specific
issue covering why wsa:Action shouldn't be mandated in the current
specification. From the various emails that have flown around, this seemed
to be a pretty good summary of the issue myself and others have.

Now, you say "Last I checked Action is part of the spec and part of the
charter." which does lead us back to what I've asked before: please let this
group know what we can and cannot discuss? Simply saying "it's in charter"
doesn't cut it, because I'm involved with many standards groups (and have
been in others in the past) where what's "in charter" doesn't constitute a
list of things that can't be openly discussed; particularly if the
specification submitted to the group has been worked on in private by only a
subset of the people in the standardization process.

So, let's have that list and clarify exactly what we can do in this group.
Otherwise this kind of thing is going to come up time and again.

Mark.

----
Mark Little,
Chief Architect,
Arjuna Technologies Ltd.

www.arjuna.com


>
> Paco
>
>
>
>
>                       Mark Little
>                       <mark.little@arjuna.com>        To:       Mark
Little <mark.little@arjuna.com>
>                       Sent by:                        cc:       Mark
Nottingham <mark.nottingham@bea.com>, public-ws-addressing@w3.org
>                       public-ws-addressing-req        Subject:  NEW ISSUE:
making wsa:Action optional
>                       uest@w3.org
>
>
>                       11/06/2004 04:13 AM
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is some confusion as to what precisely wsa;Action is meant to
> represent in the current specification. However, most people seem to
> have the opinion that it is used to represent the semantics of the
> message contained in the SOAP body. In which case, this element is used
> for dispatching the message (similar to using an opcode in other
> distributed environments).
>
> However, if wsa:Action is used to optimize dispatching so that the same
> semantics do not have to be obtained by parsing the entire SOAP body,
> this is purely an optimization. As such, its presence or lack thereof
> does not affect the architecture/model defined by the specification; it
> is entirely feasible to implement the equivalent distributed
> application without wsa:Action, albeit in (perhaps) a less performant
> manner.
>
> The argument for adding wsa:Action is that many vendors want this
> optimization and standardizing on it has merit. The argument against is
> that dispatching isn't part of addressing and so shouldn't be in this
> specification; furthermore, there are vendors and users who simply
> don't need this functionality. In fact its presence doesn't even mean
> that the receiver has to use it, so in that regard it's optional at the
> receiver and yet mandatory at the sender.
>
> What the discussions over the past few days appear to show is that
> making wsa:Action mandatory is wrong. In the case where it isn't needed
> it encourages vendors/users to fill it with something that isn't valid
> "because it's there", which adversely affects interoperability. The
> lack of wsa:Action in a header sends a clear message to any receiver;
> its presence does not.
>
> Therefore, I propose that we make wsa:Action optional.
>
> Mark.
>
>
> ----
> Mark Little,
> Chief Architect,
> Arjuna Technologies Ltd.
>
> www.arjuna.com
>
>
>
>
>
>

Received on Monday, 8 November 2004 10:01:23 UTC