Re: Announce: A brief history of SOAP

I'm not disagreeing with the idea that metadata should be standardized -- I
think it should.

All I'm saying is that a given implementation shouldn't be required to
interpret the metadata, if it's available in some other form (like
programmer docs).

Specs which require the (programmatic) interpretation of standardized
metadata place a large burden on the implementors of the spec, IMHO
unnecessarily.

(I don't think we disagree on this point, but I wanted to make my POV
clear.)

Thanks,
-Jake

on 4/4/01 3:52 AM, Leigh Dodds at ldodds@ingenta.com wrote:

> Just to de lurk for a moment:
> 
> This discussion seems reminiscent of OO developers discussing the
> addition of Run Time Time Information (RTTI, or Reflection to java types)
> to an OO language.
> 
> Adding RTTI allows you to do a lot of neat things that you couldn't do
> perform, and gives some new ways of doing things you could already do.
> 
> However this doesn't invalidate all the code you've already written that
> doesn't use RTTI.
> 
> Programmers can read the docs to discover facilities. Applications can
> inspect
> code using RTTI.
> 
> Same goal, but for different audiences. No need to require one way or
> another.
> From what I've followed so far, all that has been suggested is that the
> metadata (RTTI information) should be standardised.
> 
> I haven't seen anyone suggest that all programmer documentation for
> Java now that it has a reflection package.
> 
> <lurk-mode/>
> 
> L.
> 
> --
> Leigh Dodds, Systems Architect       | "Pluralitas non est ponenda
> http://weblogs.userland.com/eclectic |    sine necessitate"
> http://www.xml.com/pub/xmldeviant    |     -- William of Ockham
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xml-dist-app-request@w3.org [mailto:xml-dist-app-request@w3.org]On
>> Behalf Of Jake Savin
>> Sent: 04 April 2001 11:38
>> To: xml-dist-app XML Distributed Applications List
>> Subject: Re: Announce: A brief history of SOAP
>> 
>> 
>> Larry,
>> 
>> I respectfully disagree. Requiring that metadata is in a standard format
>> (like WSDL) raises the bar too high. I can do a hell of a lot
>> with only the
>> simple knowledge of what method to call at what endpoint, and with what
>> parameter types (and names).
>> 
>> I don't need WSDL (or any SDL) for that. Human-readable docs are more than
>> enough.
>> 
>> If you can parse a standard service description, and if that
>> helps you, then
>> more power to you, but requiring that I do the same isn't fair.
>> 
>> -Jake
>> 
>> ps. (I'd replied to this message yesterday, but accidentally only sent the
>> reply directly to Larry, instead of to the list -- my apologies.)
>> 
>> on 4/3/01 3:58 PM, Larry Cable at larry.cable@sfbay.sun.com wrote:
>> 
>>> 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 Wednesday, 4 April 2001 07:15:10 UTC