RE: ebXML Abandons SOAP

I have to wonder if it makes sense to have protocol that tries to be all (5)
things to all people. SOAP seems great for RPC, method calls and passing
data types, but since it doesn't nicely hold binary or even XML documents
(and I said nicely) then ought it really be a candidate for all 5 choices in
Mike's survey? Ought it really be the candidate for passing XML documents?

I am hoping (and maybe I haven't read enough of the charter) that the "XML
Protocol" working group will create "a good protocol for passing XML" (and
not having to base64 encode it.) Since CDATA can't contain CDATA, since XML
can't easily contain XML, it doesn't seem that XML (as is today) is a good
carrier/envelope for XML. As such -- is SOAP right for an XML Protocol?

Maybe XML addressing/routing/context information with separate (not
contained inside the XML) MIME bodyparts is the way to go....

regards,

Adam
-----Original Message-----
From: Kurt Cagle [mailto:cagle@olywa.net]
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2000 1:23 PM
To: xml-dist-app@w3.org
Subject: ebXML Abandons SOAP


This came across the wire a little while ago. If true (and not merely a
propaganda piece) it has some disturbing implications for both SOAP and
messaging in general. As a general summary, it says that ebXML has decided
to pass on SOAP in favor of MIME-XML:

http://www.sdtimes.com/news/015/story1.htm

-- Kurt Cagle
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Brennan" <Michael_Brennan@Allegis.com>
To: <xml-dist-app@w3.org>
Cc: "'S. Mike Dierken'" <mike@knownow.com>
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2000 11:42 AM
Subject: RE: Quick Survey - Use SOAP - results


> > From: S. Mike Dierken [mailto:mike@knownow.com]
> > [...]
> > The results are mixed & I don't think we can draw any real
> > conclusions from
> > them - there were a lot of duplicate numbers and I was hoping
> > for a pure
> > ranking.
> > Here are the averages anyway:
> >
> > 2.1 - synchronous request/response generic XML
> > 2.8 - synchronous request/response RPC method calls
> > 2.2 - asynchronous message to a queue (single consumer)
> > 3.4 - asynchronous message to a topic (multiple subscribers)
> > 2.6 - other
>
> Well, one thing that can clearly be seen from these numbers is that SOAP
has
> clearly evolved from its RPC roots to be seen as a viable substrate for
more
> generalized messaging schemes. In fact, a narrow majority of the
respondents
> seem more interested in the latter than in RPC.
>
> Considering that SOAP is still widely viewed as simply a way of doing RPC
> with XML over HTTP, I think this is pretty significant.
>
>

Received on Monday, 2 October 2000 15:47:12 UTC