Support for Feature and Property Components

Hi,

We'd like to go on record in support of wsdl Feature and Property components.  The ability to generically express an abstract piece of functionality and its related constraints has greatly simplified our implementation. Support for these components will allow us to accommodate future web standards without having to change our public API.

If support for these components is removed, implementers would be forced to rely on third-party extensions, the semantics of which are different for EACH extension.  As an example the ws-addressing work group, for whatever reason, has chosen to express feature requiredness using the wsaw:UsingAddressing element with a wsdl:required attribute on each binding.  And, the action property constraint is expressed using a wsaw:Action attribute on the interface message referenece (which I guess implies that the feature is required at the abstract level.) The logic required to read, write AND understand this extension is specific to the 'wsaw' namespace!

One other real benefit of using Features and Properties is the well defined 'Composition Model' which applies to all current and future behaviors.  Without this, the composition model will differ for each (as is the case with ws addressing) which makes our job even harder.


Todd Wolff
Bluestem Software, LLC