- From: Mark Baker <distobj@acm.org>
- Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 15:58:04 -0400
- To: Anne Thomas Manes <anne@manes.net>
- Cc: www-ws@w3.org
On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 02:25:26PM -0400, Anne Thomas Manes wrote: > A generic HTTP intermediary has little if any visibility into an HTTP POST > request if the contents of the HTTP message contain binary data. Yes, in practice, POST is a bit of a black hole in that respect (but with any data, not just binary). FWIW, a RESTful use of POST is quite visible; an intermediary knows that there is no expectation of anything happening other than the POST action being taken (i.e. no tunneling going on). But remember that visibility is an architectural property, not a property of any particular application semantic. Tunneling over POST breaks the constraints of REST, so it isn't valid to assert that REST doesn't have superior visibility than "open interface SOAs" because HTTP POST is tunneled over. > A SOAP > intermediary has significantly better visibility into an HTTP POST request > if the contents of the HTTP message contain a SOAP message. I get the impression that you're focusing primarily on "syntactic visibility", while I'm talking about "semantic visibility". Recall the definition from Roy's dissertation; "Visibility in this case refers to the ability of a component to monitor or mediate the interaction between two other components." That can only happen with a lot more than agreement on syntax. 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 Tuesday, 27 May 2003 15:54:52 UTC