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

I'm pretty sure I agree that 1 and 2 are not Web services, and that the
higher numbered ones are.  Number 7 is particularly interesting, isn't
it?  However, I'm afraid I don't understand 3.  Could you explain it in
a bit more detail, or maybe even give a simple example?  Somehow I'm
just not on the same wavelength here.

-----Original Message-----
From: Champion, Mike [mailto:Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 11:26 PM
To: www-ws-arch@w3.org
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 13:19:55 UTC