Re: Is This a Web Service?

Comments inline.

- James M Snell
  jasnell@us.ibm.com
  http://www.ibm.com
  (877) 511-5082 / Office
  930-1979 / Tie Line

www-ws-arch-request@w3.org wrote on 04/14/2003 02:48:38 PM:

> 
> 
> On Monday, April 14, 2003, at 05:29  PM, James M Snell wrote:
> > Custom Web Service: Uses an interface description (e.g. WSDL), but all
> > other WS specs are optional
> > [...]
> > Internet Web Service: Uses an interface description (WSDL) + standard
> > internet protocols (e.g. HTTP).  All other things (e.g. SOAP) are
> > optional.
> >
> > Interoperable Web Service: Uses an interface description (WSDL) + 
> > standard
> > internet protoocls (e.g. HTTP) and SOAP.  Generally talking about WS-I
> > basic profile conformance.
> 
> (1) This taxonomy is incomplete: we also need to address the
> case of SOAP-over-something-other-than-HTTP.

Yep, absolutely.  I'll be the first to admit that. :-)

> 
> (2) I think we need a distinct term for the explicitly SOAPless case. 
>  From the
> above list, the best I can do is "Internet Web Service but without 
> SOAP". It's hard to
> talk about composability and interoperability without that one.
> 

Agreed.  Whatever is developed needs to recognize that there is a spectrum 
of options that is quite fuzzy at the end where distributed applications 
become Web services.

> My own preference is for a high-level split between SOAPY web services 
> and
> SOAPLESS web services. (I'll let the marketing types come up with 
> better names.)
> The former are compatible with a variety of message transport 
> mechanisms (HTTP,
> JMS, email, etc.), which are composable according to the SOAP model;
> HTTP need not be involved at all. The latter use HTTP and may well be 
> RESTful.
> 
> 

I don't believe that the use (or lack thereof) of SOAP is a good dividing 
line.  Then again, I'm not sure what would replace it as a good dividing 
line so I'll just sit back and let y'all figure that one out.  I threw 
this out just to add to the mix at bit.