RE: Message Recipient 2.2.26 & Sender 2.2.27 text

I am all for "limiting the scope of our work to WSDL and SOAP plus other
stuff that builds on their concepts" and building on top of concepts
already in SOAP 1.2.  As I do not know the reason behind the original
text not building on SOAP 1.2 concepts, I wasn't prepared to suggest
drastic changes.

However, if the editorial team is willing to entertain substantial
changes from existing text, I agree with almost all of Chris'
suggestions with some changes:

message sender 
An agent that transmits a message.

message receiver 
An agent that accepts a message.

intermediary 
An intermediary is an agent that is both a message receiver and a
message sender and is targetable from within a message. It may process
whole or parts of the message, and acts to forward the message to the
next message receiver towards the ultimate message receiver along the
message path.

Message path 
The set of agents through which a single message passes. This includes
the 
initial message sender, zero or more intermediaries, and the ultimate 
message receiver.

Initial message sender 
The message sender that originates a message at the starting point of a 
message path.

Ultimate message receiver 
The message receiver that is (intended by the initial message sender to
be) responsible for processing the body or payload of the message. In
some 
circumstances, a message might not reach an ultimate message receiver,
for 
example because of a problem at an intermediary. An ultimate message 
receiver cannot also be an intermediary for the same message.

-------------------------------------------
Cf. Chris proposed definition for 
Ultimate message receiver
The message receiver that is a final destination of a message. It is 
responsible for processing the contents of the message. In some 
circumstances, a message might not reach an ultimate message receiver,
for 
example because of a problem at an intermediary. An ultimate message 
receiver cannot also be an intermediary for the same message

Cf. SOAP 1.2 definition for
Ultimate SOAP receiver
The SOAP receiver that is a final destination of a SOAP message. It is 
responsible for processing the contents of the SOAP body and any SOAP 
header blocks targeted at it. In some circumstances, a SOAP message
might 
not reach an ultimate SOAP receiver, for example because of a problem at
a 
SOAP intermediary. An ultimate SOAP receiver cannot also be a SOAP 
intermediary for the same SOAP message (see 2. SOAP Processing Model).

I think neither of the above definitions will work because as given in
the above example where a (SOAP) message does not reach an ultimate
(SOAP) receiver as a result of a problem at a (SOAP) intermediary, the
(SOAP) intermediary then effectively becomes the final destination of
the (SOAP) message.  In this situation, if the Ultimate (SOAP) receiver
is defined to be
"The (SOAP) message receiver that is a final destination of a (SOAP)
message"
the (SOAP) intermediary is also the ultimate (SOAP) receiver which is
clearly contradictory to the last sentence of the respective
definitions.

We seem to have concepts of message header and message content, instead
of message body.
Had we concepts of message header and message body similar to SOAP
header and SOAP body, then the ultimate message receiver (which IMO is
what the current Message Recipient corresponds to) could be:
The message receiver that is responsible for processing the message
body.

Without the concept of message body (as opposed to message header), IMO
it is difficult to define responsibility for processing the body (or
non-protocol related part) of the message without bringing intent by the
initial message sender.

Yin Leng



-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher B Ferris [mailto:chrisfer@us.ibm.com] 
Sent: Friday, 11 July 2003 7:53 AM
To: www-ws-arch@w3.org
Subject: RE: Message Recipient 2.2.26 & Sender 2.2.27 text


"Husband, Yin-Leng" <yin-leng.husband@hp.com> wrote on 07/10/2003
10:36:35 
AM:

> Hi Shishir,
> 
>  The original text in the 2003/07/01 version was:
> "A message recipient is an agent that is intended - by the message's 
sender - to consume the message."
> Your proposed change was:
> "A message recipient is an agent that is intended - by a message
sender 
- to consume the message."
> 
> You effectively made two changes:
> 1. from the definite article (i.e. "the") to the indefinite article 
("a") which grammatically means 
> any message sender, not necessarily the sender of the message being 
consumed.
> 2. from the article qualifying the gramm. object "message" to the 
article qualifying the gramm. 
> object "sender".  The orginal text relates the message (being
consumed), 
not to any sender, but 
> specifically to the sender of the message (being consumed), whereas
the 
proposed text does not 
> relate the message (being consumed) to its sender. 

I agree, I don't think that this language is very meaningful. However,
it 
is unclear to me
(appologies for not following this thread more closely!) why we would
want 
or need to articulate
intent at all. Specifically, there may be intermediaries along a message

path of which 
the message sender is oblivious. Does this mean that they aren't message

receivers? Not according
to SOAP1.2[1]. Of course, SOAP1.2 uses the terms SOAP sender and SOAP 
receiver, but I fail to 
understand why we continue to be tempted to define a whole new set of 
terms that IMO will
only serve to confuse matters considerably and may make it awkward at
best 
for us to map
the architecture to SOAP which even if we do not limit the scope of the 
architecture will be
a necessity IMO.

This gets to the crux of my continuing concern that we are not limiting 
the scope of our
work to WSDL and SOAP plus other stuff that builds on their concepts.

The terms/concepts that are being defined here are inconsistent with 
similar terms in
SOAP1.2. For instance, the term "message receiver" is being defined in 
terms of intent of
some (or the:-) "message sender". I for one think that this is
misguided. 
Whether a
message is received by some agent because it was intended or not is 
irrelevant, it was
still received and the agent that received it should be somehow
considered 
in our architecture
or we can say nothing about it and make no constraints upon it.

If we want to generalize terms because we still haven't come to complete

consensus
as to whether we are scoping our architecture to WSDL and SOAP plus
other 
goop, then
why not look to SOAP1.2 first before simply making stuff up.

SOAP1.2 defines SOAP sender, SOAP receiver and SOAP intermediary as:

SOAP sender 
A SOAP node that transmits a SOAP message.
SOAP receiver 
A SOAP node that accepts a SOAP message.
SOAP intermediary 
A SOAP intermediary is both a SOAP receiver and a SOAP sender and is 
targetable from within a SOAP message. It processes the SOAP header
blocks 
targeted at it and acts to forward a SOAP message towards an ultimate
SOAP 
receiver.

These terms could easily be generalized as:

message sender 
An agent that transmits a message.
message receiver 
An agent that accepts a message.
intermediary 
An intermediary is an agent that is both a message receiver and a
message 
sender. It may processes messages and acts to forward messages towards
an 
ultimate message receiver along the message path.

Then, of course we would need/want to define the other missing terms
that 
are found in the SOAP1.2 spec:

SOAP message path 
The set of SOAP nodes through which a single SOAP message passes. This 
includes the initial SOAP sender, zero or more SOAP intermediaries, and
an 
ultimate SOAP receiver.
Initial SOAP sender 
The SOAP sender that originates a SOAP message at the starting point of
a 
SOAP message path.
Ultimate SOAP receiver 
The SOAP receiver that is a final destination of a SOAP message. It is 
responsible for processing the contents of the SOAP body and any SOAP 
header blocks targeted at it. In some circumstances, a SOAP message
might 
not reach an ultimate SOAP receiver, for example because of a problem at
a 
SOAP intermediary. An ultimate SOAP receiver cannot also be a SOAP 
intermediary for the same SOAP message (see 2. SOAP Processing Model).

These could be generalized as:

Message path 
The set of agents through which a single message passes. This includes
the 
initial message sender, zero or more intermediaries, and an ultimate 
message receiver.
Initial message sender 
The message sender that originates a message at the starting point of a 
message path.
Ultimate message receiver 
The message receiver that is a final destination of a message. It is 
responsible for processing the contents of the message. In some 
circumstances, a message might not reach an ultimate message receiver,
for 
example because of a problem at an intermediary. An ultimate message 
receiver cannot also be an intermediary for the same message 

> 
> Yin Leng
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: GARG Shishir / FTR&D / US 
[mailto:shishir.garg@rd.francetelecom.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, 10 July 2003 3:49 AM
> To: Husband, Yin-Leng; 'www-ws-arch@w3.org'
> Subject: RE: Message Recipient 2.2.26 & Sender 2.2.27 text
> 
> hi, inline comments....
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Husband, Yin-Leng [mailto:yin-leng.husband@hp.com]
> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 9:14 PM
> To: GARG Shishir / FTR&D / US; www-ws-arch@w3.org
> Cc: Husband, Yin-Leng
> Subject: RE: Message Recipient 2.2.26 & Sender 2.2.27 text
> Hi Shishir,
> 
> 2.2.26 Message recipient
> 
> RE: 2.2.26.1 Summary
> The proposed modification to 2.2.26.1 would lose some essential 
relationship information relating 
> the message being consumed to its message sender.  I suggest retaining

the current text. 
>  The original text in the 2003/07/01 version was:
> "A message recipient is an agent that is intended - by the message's 
sender - to consume the message."
> 
> All I changed there was replaced "message's sender" with "message 
sender" in order to use the 
> concept of a message sender directly as defined in 2.2.27. I think
this 
change emphasized the 
> definition of the relationships based on the concepts being defined. 
What info has been lost so I 
> can capture it?
> 
> RE: 2.2.26.3 Description
> I suggest that either the paragraph discussing intermediaries be
dropped 
from this section or re-
> worded in the context of message recipient.
> Since "a message recipient is an agent", the text for this section 
(second sentence) should not be
> "The message recipient of an agent ..." 
> 
> I was a little unsure of the original text, but thought the "of an 
agent" notion was meant to 
> capture the fact that an agent can be many things, and here we're 
discussing the message recipient
> part of the agent... I am happy to drop the "of an agent" in both 26
and 
27.
> In addition, I propose removing references to "anonymous" (which means

unknown source) in this 
> section.  Propose the following modified text.
> The message recipient is the agent that the sender intends the message

to be consumed by.  The 
> message recipient may be identified by its agent identifier in a
message 
envelope; however, the 
> agent identifier of the message recipient is not required to be
supplied 
in the case of broadcast-
> style interactions.
> In general, a message may be intended for more than one recipient. 
Furthermore, in some cases, the
> sending agent may not have direct knowledge of the identity of the 
message recipient (for example,
> in multicast or broadcast situations).
> Optionally,
> Messages may also be passed through intermediaries that process
aspects 
of the message; typically 
> by examining the message headers. The message recipient may or may not

be aware of processing by 
> such intermediaries. 
> I agree with these changes, and don't mind not mentioning anonymous 
interactions, but at the same 
> time, it's probably useful to relate the "Message recipient" concept 
with the "Intermediary" 
> concept and then the anonymous interactions can be implied. So, I
would 
suggest keeping the 
> optional text suggested by Yin-Leng.
> 
> 2.2.27 Message sender
> 
> RE: 2.2.27.3 Description
> 
> I suggest that either the paragraph discussing intermediaries be
dropped 
from this section or that
> similar paragraphs be present in both  message recipient and message 
sender sections. 
> 
> As I just wrote above, lets add the intermediary text in for both
sender 
and recipient. 
> Propose the following modified text consistent with proposed 2.2.26.3 
text.
> A message sender is the agent that originally caused a new message to
be 
created and sent to an 
> agent. The message sender may be identified by its agent identifier in
a 
message envelope; 
> however, the agent identifier of the message sender may not be
available 
in the case of anonymous 
> interactions.
> Optionally,
> Messages may also be passed through intermediaries that process
aspects 
of the message; typically 
> by examining the message headers. The sending agent may or may not be 
aware of processing by such 
> intermediaries.
> Yin Leng
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: GARG Shishir / FTR&D / US 
[mailto:shishir.garg@rd.francetelecom.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, 2 July 2003 4:08 PM
> To: 'www-ws-arch@w3.org'
> Subject: Message Recipient 2.2.26 & Sender 2.2.27 text
> 
> hi, per the last concall, I have taken a look at the existing text for

2.2.26 and 2.2.27 and 
> propose only minor modifications to the original text as follows.
Also, 
there is some text 
> regarding intermediaries that I think is more appropriate to associate

with the sender's description:
> 2.2.26 Message recipient 
> 2.2.26.1 Summary 
> A message recipient is an agent that is intended - by a message sender
- 
to consume the message. 
> 2.2.26.2 Relationships to other elements 
> a message recipient is 
> an agent 
> 2.2.26.3 Description 
> The message recipient is the agent that the sender intends the message

to be consumed by. The 
> message recipient of an agent may be represented as the agent's 
identifier in a message envelope; 
> however, in the case of anonymous or broadcast-style interactions, the

recipient of a message may 
> not be available to the sender, and vice-versa.
> In general, a message may be intended for more than one recipient. 
Furthermore, in some cases, the
> sending agent may not have direct knowledge of the identity of the 
message recipient (for example,
> in multi-case situations or in the case anonymous interactions with a 
service provider.)
> 

> 2.2.27 Message sender 
> 2.2.27.1 Summary 
> A message sender is the agent that originates a message. 
> 2.2.27.2 Relationships to other elements 
> a message sender is 
> an agent 
> 2.2.27.3 Description 
> A message sender is the agent that originally caused a new message to
be 
created and sent to an 
> agent. The message sender of an agent may be represented as the
agent's 
identifier in a message 
> envelope; however, in the case of anonymous interactions the
originator 
of a message may not be available.
> Messages may also be passed through intermediaries that process
aspects 
of the message; typically 
> by examining the message headers. The sending agent may or may not be 
aware of such intermediaries.
> -#-#-# 
> Couple of additional comments: 
> * I would suggest the Intermediary text in 2.2.11.1 Summary read: 
> An intermediary is a message processing node that does not necessarily

represent the message's 
> intended recipient; but which, none-the-less may process some aspect
of 
the message.
> * Does 2.2.26.3 need to mention intermediaries at all? 

Cheers,

Christopher Ferris
STSM, Emerging e-business Industry Architecture
email: chrisfer@us.ibm.com
phone: +1 508 234 3624

Received on Thursday, 17 July 2003 09:34:49 UTC