RE: Stateless comms in the WSA

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Baker [mailto:distobj@acm.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 3:09 PM
> To: Champion, Mike
> Cc: www-ws-arch@w3.org
> Subject: Stateless comms in the WSA
> 
> 
> 
> Oh yes, most definitely.  Stateless communication is a key 
> architectural constraint of the Web, and I've also heard many Web services

> people talk about its value too.

Uhh, how did we get from "should SOAP message receivers work off the InfoSet
or the PSVI?" to "Should web services communications be stateless?"  Sorry
if I'm missing something ... bad cold ... my IQ is even lower than normal
today :~)

Also, my Religious War early-warning detectors are blinking red.  The issues
of how web applications should manage state, and the (lamentable ?) gap
between REST theory and CGI-hacker practice, have been beaten to death in
every imagineable forum over the last few years with no resolution that I
know of. (Or if there is a resolution, someone might want to post a link so
that we can all get up to speed).  

Remember, there are several things we're trying to accomplish, and Best
Practices recommendations are only one aspect.  State management in web
services is obviously an important topic, but again let's try to focus on
what we want to put in the WSA document:

- Where does this go in the document?  Is there a section on "state
management" or does this cut across the whole reference architecture?

- What are the implications for the reference architecture?  If it cuts
across levels/modules, how do we describe it, or is this something that
applications simply have to figure out without help from the web services
protocol stack?

- What are the implications for future standards activities?  Does anyone
think there should be a State Management Working Group, or that this should
be addressed by another WG that we might spin off?

- etc.

Finally, let's be informative with Subject: lines.  There is a subthread of
this thread that relates to the original PSVI issue, and hopefully responses
that address this aspect of Mark's reply to my reply to .... will change the
subject appropriately.

Received on Tuesday, 6 August 2002 20:04:47 UTC