Re: Sample SOAP message on the wire with Reference Properties and Parameters (without a wrapper!)

Chris,

On Wed, Nov 24, 2004 at 11:01:20AM -0500, Christopher B Ferris wrote:
> Mark,
> 
> Please see Paco's recent missive[1]... the EPR is NOT an identifier, it is 
> an addressable reference.

Well, I don't want to get into that because I disagree with Paco; a
reference is an identifier (including the snail mail address written
on an envelope).  My concern though, was just that I wasn't sure if the
WG had reached concensus on one position, which is why I described what
I felt a self-descriptive message would require from the POV of some of
the different perspectives I've heard on this issue.

> The ref props/params *can* be used to provide additional information that 
> the service provider will use
> as it sees fit. One such purpose that has been used by WS-RF has been to 
> pass keys/identifiers to 
> resources (implied resource pattern) as ref props, but that is not the 
> only use of ref props/params.
> In the context of the implied resource pattern, the ref props serialized 
> as SOAP headers can be
> considered the equivalent of cookies used to associate a stateful session, 
> like a shopping cart service
> might do.

Do you mean reference *parameters*?  I thought those were, roughly, the
equivalent of cookies in WS-A?  The submission seems to back me up on
that with its description of properties and parameters;

  "A reference may contain a number of individual properties that are
   required to identify the entity or resource being conveyed."

  "A reference may contain a number of individual parameters which are
   associated with the endpoint to facilitate a particular interaction."

  -- http://www.w3.org/Submission/2004/SUBM-ws-addressing-20040810/#_Toc77464318

> As an example that is often used, a service might have three levels of 
> service; silver, gold and platinum.
> Each level of service might have a different policy that applies. Hence, I 
> would use the ref props to 
> include a <myservice:MembershipLevel> element with the possible values 
> Silver, Gold, or Platinum.
> Is that identity? Nope. 

Reasonable people could disagree about that and choose to publish
different identifiers for each class of service.  There are tradeoffs
with each approach, of course, but I don't think one can assert that
this information is not identifying information since it can clearly
be used as such.

Mark.
-- 
Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca

Received on Wednesday, 24 November 2004 17:03:18 UTC