RE: Questions about concept of Web service

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xu yu sheng [mailto:xuyusheng@lzu.edu.cn]
> Sent: Monday, May 26, 2003 11:05 PM
> To: www-ws-arch@w3.org
> Subject: Questions about concept of Web service
> 
> 
> 
> When I meet the defination of Web service, I have 
> two questions: (1)What
> does Web service mean, a specification, an architecture, a 
> solution,or other?

I believe that it is a term that comes more from the marketing domain than
the technical domain.  This working group has struggled to define it
rigorously, and has not come to a consensus.  Still, I think that most of us
would agree that "Web services" defines an architecture, or perhaps an
architecture design pattern, and not a particular specification,
application, or solution.

> (2)May the techniques, such as URI,XML and internet ,which 
> implement Web services, be ommited from the concept of Web service ? 

I believe that these are more than implementation techniques, but are are
intrinsic to the properties of the WS architecture that we are defining.  If
the term "world wide web" means *anything*, the concept of a URI and the
foundation of the internet are absolutely central to the definition.  XML is
somewhat more controversial as a necessary concept for "web service", but
most of us in the working group appear to believe that without XML, Web
services would not have the power and functionality that they do.  XML
(including related technologies such as namespaces, schemas, and the
Infoset) provide a good basis on which to build platform-independent,
communications protocol-neutral services.  Perhaps a similar technology such
as ASN.1 could have provided such a basis (it has both the abstract data
metamodel and the concrete syntax bindings that we need), but as a practical
matter XML has the mindshare, the deployed infrastructure, and the
widespread tools needed to provide a platform on which Web services can
build.

Received on Wednesday, 28 May 2003 01:51:22 UTC