Re: Announce: A brief history of SOAP

I find this an interesting discussion, but I believe that the term
'metadata' is being used for (at least) three distinct things: syntax,
semantics, and "meaning" in the real-world. Distinguishing between
them may help clear up some of the confusion. For me, WSDL is
"semantics", XSD and DTD's are "syntax", and the stuff in our brain
that knows that "amount" refers to a bank account (and what a 'bank'
is) is "meaning".

So, to answer the question below, I would say that WSDL is an XML
syntax for a semantic relationship between an XML document in the SOAP
syntax and the "web services" programming model. What 'translate'
really "means" is another matter..

- Dan

Serdar Kilic wrote:
> 
> Excuse my ignorance on this, but isn't our XML document metadata itself ? So
> our WSDL document will be metadata for metadata, true ?
> 
> Maybe it's just me and I don't have a full grasp on the issue, and/or, the
> relevance of WSDL.
> 
> Just my 2c (well 4c US)
> 
> Cheers,
> Serdar
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Larry Cable" <larry.cable@sfbay.sun.com>
> To: "Andrew Layman" <andrewl@microsoft.com>
> Cc: <xml-dist-app@w3.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 8:58 AM
> Subject: Re: Announce: A brief history of SOAP
> 
> : Andrew Layman wrote:
> :
> : > If I send you a message such as
> : >
> : >         <Translate>
> : >                 <gamma>123.45</gamma>
> : >                 <epsilon>.67</epsilon>
> : >                 <pi>3.14159</pi>
> : >         </Translate>
> : >
> : > then you presumably either have somehow got some idea what this message
> : > means and what its structure is etc., or you don't and cannot process it
> : > (except as generic XML).  However you got the knowledge, that was the
> : > metadata.
> : >
> : > In the case of the messages sent to the "SOAP Validator" at UserLand's
> : > site, the documentation describing the messages is the metadata.
> : >
> : > I don't think you can do much without some metadata.  The only issue is
> : > the form that the metadata takes, largely whether it is in a standard
> : > form or not.
> :
> : I concur, furthermore I would reinforce your assertion that a std
> mechanism
> : for describing such meta-data
> : is a "requirement" in order to enable both static and dynamic service
> : discovery and subsequent conversations.
> :
> : Rgds
> :
> : - Larry Cable.
> :
> : >
> : >
> : > -----Original Message-----
> : > From: Dave Winer [mailto:dave@userland.com]
> : > Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 3:31 PM
> : > To: xml-dist-app@w3.org
> : > Subject: Re: Announce: A brief history of SOAP
> : >
> : > Andrew I don't know enough about the kinds of environments you use, but
> : > I'm
> : > with Fredrik on this. We do just fine without any meta data. No
> : > "requires"
> : > here. Dave
> : >
> : > ----- Original Message -----
> : > From: "Andrew Layman" <andrewl@microsoft.com>
> : > To: <xml-dist-app@w3.org>
> : > Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 12:07 PM
> : > Subject: RE: Announce: A brief history of SOAP
> : >
> : > > I think that the point is that any exchange of messages via SOAP (or
> : > > otherwise) requires that the parties have mutual access to some sort
> : > of
> : > > metadata describing the types of the data being exchanged.  WSDL
> : > > provides such metadata in an implementation-neutral way that supports
> : > > and leverages the W3C specifications such as Schema.
> : > >
> : > > -----Original Message-----
> : > > From: Fredrik Lundh [mailto:fredrik@pythonware.com]
> : > > Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2001 2:35 AM
> : > > To: Box, Don
> : > > Cc: xml-dist-app@w3.org
> : > > Subject: Re: Announce: A brief history of SOAP
> : > >
> : > >
> : > > > You can read it at http://www.develop.com/dbox/postsoap.html
> : > >
> : > >     "Does SOAP/XML Messaging make sense without something like
> : > >     WSDL? No way"
> : > >
> : > > huh?  I've got lots of users for my python soap implementation,
> : > > and now you're saying that what they do doesn't make sense?
> : > >
> : > > what have we missed?
> : > >
> : > > Cheers /F
> : > >
> :
> :

Received on Tuesday, 3 April 2001 21:47:01 UTC