RE: Is This a Web Service?

I definitely agree we need a single definition, and one that "by definition" is inclusive as well as exclusive.  

I am not in favor of creating a definition only by referencing specific technologies, and as with the architecture work in general, believe that we are on the right track when we can create a sensible definition of the "what" followed by examples of the "how" as David Burdett puts it.

Eric

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Bunting [mailto:Doug.Bunting@Sun.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 6:29 PM
To: Richard.Chennault@kp.org
Cc: jim.webber@arjuna.com; www-ws-arch@w3.org;
www-ws-arch-request@w3.org
Subject: Re: Is This a Web Service?



I'm thinking this portion of the many thread splinters occurring over 
the last 24 hours may be the most important.  Richard and Jim are 
describing important additional use cases and requirements for a Web 
service definition.

I find any Web service definition that includes straightforward, legacy 
CGI scripts to be overly inclusive and unhelpful when discussing the 
emerging architecture of interest to this WG.  I also believe "must be 
describable using WSDL" is almost a tautology (excludes almost nothing) 
and is, when used alone, similarly unhelpful.  To some points on this 
thread and other portions of the web we're spinning, any definition so 
abstract as to include HTTP GET of an HTML page intended for humans (for 
example) will not satisfy our requirements.  We need a definition that 
(to Roger's original point) at least answers "no" once in a while when 
used to answer "is this a web service?".

We need to find a definition more concrete than what's in the current 
Architecture and Requirements documents to inform later decisions about 
the actual architecture and to be useful.  Going the other way, we need 
to avoid counter proposals that either delve below a line where we can 
reach consensus or which ignore ignore important considerations others 
in the group have raised.  As Jim described, marginalisation may arise 
from attempting to make our definition too concrete and specific.

That said, I can see an architectural nicety to some of the taxonomies 
described elsewhere.  Subsets of the one definition we find may be 
interesting in specific areas of the architecture.  However, let's focus 
on the single definition and getting it at a useful level before we 
start splitting it up.

thanx,
	doug

On 2003-04-15 09:57, Richard.Chennault@kp.org wrote:
> 
> +1 to what Jim states.
> 
> To me a Web Service requires WSDL and XML.   If WSDL and XML are not 
> involved then one could theorize that we have always had web-services 
> once CGI's were born.
> 
> Rregards,
> 
> _________________________________________________
> Richard D. Chennault
> 
> Kaiser Permanente
> 
> 
> 
> 	*"Jim Webber" <jim.webber@arjuna.com>*
> Sent by: www-ws-arch-request@w3.org
> 
> 04/15/2003 08:23 AM
> 
> 	       
>         To:        <www-ws-arch@w3.org>, <www-ws-arch-request@w3.org>
>         cc:        
>         Subject:        RE: Is This a Web Service?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Roger:
> 
>  > Do other people think that if it doesn't use WSDL it's not a
>  > Web service?  I personally don't like this at all.
> 
> Nor do I, but then I have the seemingly contrarian view that SOAP is
> implicitly involved :-) (and not necessarily anything to do with the Web).
> 
> While I can appreciate that this group does not necessarily have to have a
> commercially-facing outlook, we are at risk of marginalisation if the
> architecture fragments into X different flavours of Web services.
> 
> Jim
> 
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 15 April 2003 19:36:04 UTC