RE: Explaining visibility, take 54

Hold on Mark. Your example doesn't support your thesis. Your example
illustrates that a specific intermediary does not have very good visibility
into any type of message other than the one it's designed for. I agree with
this example -- but as I said before, I don't see much point in developing a
specific intermediary.

I don't agree that a specific intermediary will have *vastly* superior
visibility into its message type than a generic intermediary.

You can give a generic intermediary very simple instructions to find this
particular bit of information from this particular type of message and then
act according to some business rules. The intermediary dynamically learns
what it needs to know about the message based on the WSDL file. This is how
most Web Services Management products work.

Because the message is encoded in XML, and because it is defined by WSDL, a
generic intermediary has just as much visibility into the message as a
specific intermediary. And that's the whole point.

Why develop a specific intermediary when you can accomplish just as much
with a generic intermediary? (You, of all people, should appreciate this
feature.)

Anne


> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-ws-request@w3.org [mailto:www-ws-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
> Mark Baker
> Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2003 7:48 AM
> To: Anne Thomas Manes
> Cc: www-ws@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Explaining visibility, take 54
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 09, 2003 at 12:11:22PM -0400, Anne Thomas Manes wrote:
> > Mark,
> >
> > Although it's conceivable that people might want to build an
> intermediary
> > dedicated to processing a specific type of SOAP message, it's
> not the normal
> > practice.
>
> I agree, but IMO that's beside the point.
>
> The purpose of my initial message in this thread was to highlight that
> *IF* an intermediary were programmed to understand a specific type of
> SOAP interface, necessarily), *THEN* it would have vastly superior
> visibility to one that didn't.
>
> For example, a stock quote analysis intermediary would have better
> visibility when placed between a stock quote client and a stock quote
> server, than it would between a cake baking client and a cake baking
> server.
>
> Do you not agree?
>
> MB
> --
> Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca
> Web architecture consulting, technical reports, evaluation & analysis
>   Actively seeking contract work or employment
>

Received on Sunday, 11 May 2003 19:00:38 UTC