- From: Mark Jones <jones@research.att.com>
- Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 15:15:22 -0500 (EST)
- To: www-ws-arch@w3.org
I had an Action Item from the Feb 13, 2003 telcon to summarize an interesting thread that cropped up in the XMLP Attachment Requirements Task Force activity. One of the proposed requirements for the concrete attachments spec is R29, currently captured as follows: R29. [This requirement engendered a lot of discussion and has some significant ramifications for the Abstract Attachment Specification and for the basic conception of the SOAP message infoset.] (a) A message with all its parts, however separated physically, must be representable as a single infoset. (b) A message with all its parts, however separated physically, must be describable as a single XML element in an XML schema. The following threads give a sense of the discussion that has ensued on xml-dist-app@w3.org (the public mailing list for XMLP). I'm listing only Martin's emails which respond to and quote the other email on the topic. [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2003Jan/0051.html (The original requirement suggested by Martin Gudgin from Microsoft.) [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2003Jan/0057.html (A reply from Martin to Sanjiva Weerawarana) [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2003Feb/0002.html (A reply from Martin to Chris Ferris) [4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2003Feb/0003.html (Another message from Martin) [5] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2003Feb/0004.html (A reply from Martin to Rich Salz) [6] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2003Feb/0015.html (A reply from Martin to John Barton) [7] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2003Feb/0025.html (Another clarifying comment by Martin) [8] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2003Feb/0037.html (Another clarifying comment by Martin) [9] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2003Feb/0039.html (A reply from Martin to Chris Ferris) There was further discussion on the topic in the Feb 12, 2003 XMLP telcon with no definitive consensus yet on what to do with the requirement. Many people were intrigued by the idea of unifying all of the information traveling with a SOAP message in a single infoset. It makes a complete XML Schema/WSDL description potentially simpler and extends the power of the SOAP processing model to features. There are, however, many open questions about how to represent binary information in this abstract infoset, how signatures would work, how all of the extra-envelope bits of SOAP 1.2 technology (Webmethod, SOAP action, etc.) would be normatively specified, etc. There was some concern that although the idea was appealing, it is too late to propose this for SOAP 1.2. Its scope and implications are obviously much larger than the concrete attachments spec. Even if the XMLP group does not endorse this model for integration into its SOAP 1.2 work, it seems like the ideas are worth considering from an architectural point of view and of possible relevance to follow-on work in SOAP. --mark Mark A. Jones AT&T Labs -- Strategic Standards Division Shannon Laboratory Room 2A02 180 Park Ave. Florham Park, NJ 07932-0971 email: jones@research.att.com phone: (973) 360-8326 fax: (973) 236-6453
Received on Friday, 14 February 2003 15:15:54 UTC