RE: Stranger in a Strange Land

Good idea.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Hollander [mailto:dmh@contivo.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 7:45 PM
To: Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler); www-ws-arch@w3.org
Subject: RE: Stranger in a Strange Land


Roger asks a good question.
 
It sure would be good if the benefits and advantages and disadvantages
of evelopes, descriptions, payload formats, etc
could be found in our architecture document!
 
Please, can we focus on that and not have a long tirade on the pros/cons
of soap. I ask that answers be based on what is in the document or what
should be or to him personally.
 
DaveH

	-----Original Message-----
	From: Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler)
[mailto:RogerCutler@ChevronTexaco.com]
	Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 5:54 PM
	To: www-ws-arch@w3.org
	Subject: Stranger in a Strange Land
	
	

	Once again I feel like I am torn between different universes.
It would be a lot easier for me, and certainly more comfortable, if I
spent my all my time in a single environment where everyone comfortably
accepts the same assumptions and values.

	OK, let's be more specific.  I have learned that a company which
I think is much larger than any represented in the W3C has forced
another company that I think is larger than any in the W3C to accept XML
payloads (lots of them) totally without envelopes.  "I don't need no
stinking SOAP".  Moreover, I find that many small to medium sized
companies are objecting to the expense of creating envelopes that they
feel do not benefit them, and also wish to send bare XML payloads.  A
very large company which has implemented an XXXX standard with envelopes
(which we have also implemented) has subsequently implemented an
XXXX-lite -- which is just the body without any envelope whatsoever.
Signing and so on, of course, are possible in this scenario.  Again, "We
don't need no stinkin SOAP".

	I find also that a company that is trying to make a business out
of collecting and routing business transactions has found itself under
increasing pressure from the market and its clients not to use
envelopes.  They think that envelopes are very good things -- but they
are moving toward offering services that are envolope-free.

	So I ask, "What is the benefit of the envelopes"?  I ask people
in my company who have implemented a business transaction project
including envelopes and they tell me that envelopes are very good and
very forward looking -- they should be very useful for creating supply
chain processes and keeping track of what transactions have occurred,
not to mention dealing with complex routing situations -- but in fact
they have not really done very much with the envelopes.  Well, exactly
what HAVE they done?  Well, they have made them and received them.  And
I infer that they have felt virtuous in the process.  Well, maybe they
have looked at some statistics based on the envelopes from the
middleware a few times, and they feel good that they have been able to
purchase middleware products based on the envelopes.  Perhaps this has
saved development effort.

	I ask other people what the benefit is of envelopes, and I
receive no answer that indicates to me any benefit whatsoever to a small
to medium sized company that does not have elaborate and expensive
middleware systems.  Envelopes seem to make it easy for expensive
middleware in big companies to keep track of things (although as far as
I can tell most of the big companies are not really exploiting this for
much) -- but for the little guys they appear to be pretty much something
that is being forced on them by the big guys.

	Except that the biggest of the big guys seems to be saying that
they don't need no stinkin envelopes. 

	I think there is something wrong here, folks.  It seems to me
that we may be seeing the beginnings of a market rebellion.  It would
really, really be helpful to me if someone could remind me why envolopes
are so great.  I sort of have forgotten, as has everyone else I have
been talking to around here.  Just about everybody seems to agree that
they are absolutely necessary -- but they all seem to have forgotten
exactly why.

	I don't have a good feeling about this, folks.