Re: LC115: a WSDL whatsit? (conformance terminology)

This is a followup suggestion for LC115:
http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/desc/4/lc-issues/issues.html#LC115

I suggest we consistently adopt the term "WSDL 2.0 document" in our spec
(as I have done in the Primer), and define it along the following
lines.  This term (or the shorter version "WSDL document") seems to be
used a lot colloquially (including in our spec) so it clearly has
intuitive appeal, but we need to be clear that when we use this term we
are not necessarily referring to a single *physical* document, because
WSDL 2.0 is based on the XML Infoset.  My point here is to suggest: (a)
that we standardize on using this term; and (b) that we define it as an
information item in the XML Infoset.  

Here is how I have defined it in the WSDL 2.0 Primer Section 3:
http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/%7Echeckout%7E/2002/ws/desc/wsdl20/wsdl20-primer.html#wsdl-xml-representation
[[
a WSDL 2.0 document consists of a description element information item (in 
the XML Infoset) that conforms to the WSDL 2.0 specification. In other 
words, a sentence in the WSDL 2.0 language is a description element 
information item that obeys the additional constraints spelled out in the 
WSDL 2.0 specification.
]]
Feel free to tweak the precise verbiage.

And to understand how this relates to the component model, here is an 
excerpt from the Primer section 3.3:
http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/%7Echeckout%7E/2002/ws/desc/wsdl20/wsdl20-primer.html#component-model
[[
The WSDL 2.0 Infoset model above illustrates the required structure of a 
WSDL 2.0 document, using the XML Infoset. However, the WSDL 2.0 language 
also imposes many semantic constraints over and above structural 
conformance to this XML Infoset. In order to precisely describe these 
constraints, and as an aid in precisely defining the meaning of each WSDL 
2.0 document, the WSDL 2.0 specification defines a component model as an 
additional layer of abstraction above the XML Infoset. Constraints and 
meaning are defined in terms of this component model, and the definition of 
each component includes a mapping that specifies how values in the 
component model are derived from corresponding items in the XML Infoset.
]]

-- 
David Booth <dbooth@w3.org>

Received on Monday, 18 April 2005 15:21:22 UTC