RE: Protocol Bindings

>I think I and a number of others strongly believe that the 
>purpose of a protocol binding IS to describe how to make use 
>of a particular underlying protocol to transfer XMLP/SOAP 
>messages. You seem to be stating that that is not the case.

What you state here is different from what you stated in the previous
mail. Either the "purpose of an XML Protocol Binding is to provide rules
for the transfer of XML Protocol messages over some specific underlying
protocol" or "the purpose of a protocol binding IS to describe how to
make use of a particular underlying protocol to transfer XMLP/SOAP
messages."

In the former description the binding provides the rules for the
transfer, in the latter the binding describes how SOAP can use the
underlying protocol's rules for transfer. I agree partially with the
latter, I disagree with the former. What I pointed out in addition is
that transfer rules can either be provided by the underlying protocol or
they can be provided by some SOAP extension.

It is important to keep in mind that SOAP core does not define any
routing pattern or any message exchange pattern other than a one-way
message and we should be very careful to separate what SOAP actually
provides and requires of the underlying protocol from the features and
services that applications using SOAP may deploy and use in addition to
core SOAP.

>Your response seems to suggest that you expect the rule for 
>transferring SOAP/XMLP messages to be intrinisic to an 
>underlyling protocol already or defined within the domain of 
>some SOAP/XMLP extension.

Given the core SOAP protocol as being effectively the envelope then I
think that is the case. Can you provide a scenario where a SOAP binding
would change the HTTP message exchange pattern for example? 

>The way I see it is that an 
>underlying protocol *provides* some communication service(s). 
>The rules of procedure of that underlying protocol define the 
>mechanisms by which it *provides* those communication services. 

Actually, this doesn't really change the fact that SOAP core by itself
defines no routing mechanism or message exchange patterns. I would be
cautious applying too much of a layered view - especially as SOAP can be
used in combination with a variety of underlying protocols that
traditionally are seen as belonging to different layers.

I much prefer the categorization proposed by Mark [1]

Henrik

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2001Jul/0015.html

Received on Thursday, 5 July 2001 14:25:43 UTC