Re: Nailing down the definition of "Web services" and the scope o f WS A for the document

> > 
> > 2. "A Web service is an interface to an executable software agent..."
> >     >> Are we saying a web service is not a service, but is an 
> > interface. Isn't a web service a service with an exposed interface?
> 
> I addressed this in a reply to Walden M.
> 

Partly.  But it's kind of like saying that your car is an interface
to the engine and drive train.  Technically, there's only part of the
car that comes in contact with the driver and passengers, and it
does bridge between them and raw locomotion, but it seems
like an over-analysis.  A service is there to serve, not to "interface",
even when you think "interface" in this concrete sense.

Take some legacy system and put it on the web.  Is the web
service just the part that messes with uri and markup stuff, or
is the whole shebang now a web service.  I think the latter.

On the other hand: take some legacy system and put it on the
web: you just did it a big favor; you gave it "web service".
In the nomenclature of cosmetology, that's an *interface-lift*.

I go to bed now, Mike.


Walden

Received on Wednesday, 16 April 2003 22:58:17 UTC