Re: To be a Web service, or not to be a Web service ...

Mike,

I like these examples, but I wish you'd re-work them to make sure
you're describing the service and not the client.  What the client does
may be indicative of the service, but a direct description of the
service would be clearer.

Thanks,
Walden

----- Original Message -----
From: "Champion, Mike" <Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com>
To: <www-ws-arch@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 12:26 AM
Subject: To be a Web service, or not to be a Web service ...


>
> OK, which of these are or are not Web services?  All are assumed to
involve
> one software agend accessing another.... and I won't waste time with
obvious
> cases where SOAP and WSDL are involved.
>
> 1) Generating a URI by some hard coded or ad hoc means, then doing an HTTP
> GET of an HTML page, then screen-scraping it (based on hard coded or ad
hoc
> definition of the content) to populate a data structure.
>
> 2) Emulating a human's action filling out an HTML FORM by generating an
HTTP
> GET or POST request.
>
> 3) A RESTful hypermedia-like interaction where a URI is generated, data
PUT
> or GET from that URI, the HTTP error code is checked, and the results
parsed
> to find the appropriate URI for the next round of interaction via some
> heuristic.
>
> 4) Same as 3) but the syntax of the returned data is XML that conforms to
an
> agreed upon schema and the rules for interpreting the results and moving
to
> the next state are well-defined in an XML-based format.
>
> 5) A hand-coded SOAP interaction between client and server software based
on
> an informal understanding of the interface  to some service.
>
> 6) An application generated from a WSDL description of a non-SOAP
> interaction via HTTP.  (Assuming that WSDL supports such a thing)
>
> 7) A "semantic web" application in which agents interact via HTTP (without
> SOAP) based on a formal description of what is to be done that doesn't
> involve WSDL, but does involve RDF/OWL.
>
> I'd be interested in people's thoughts, and if it would be useful I think
we
> could organize a straw poll.  FWIW, I think they are all "web services"
> except 1) and 2).
>
> Anyone wishing to refine / clarify / expand this to make it more useful
for
> voting against is welcome to do so.
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 16 April 2003 09:54:10 UTC