encodingStyle

A couple of comments on encodingStyle.

I'm not completely happy with the default SOAP encodingStyle. In particular,
I'm not sure I like the way arrays are encoded. That said, I agree
completely with the statement Noah made in today's conference call: the
degree of interoperability XML protocol implementations achieve will be
inversely proportional to the number of encodingStyles that sprout up. An
XML Protocol standard will be of little use if different implementations use
different encodingStyles. So, at some point, a normative or de facto
standard encodingStyle has got to gain acceptance. Another possibility would
be for a very small number of standard encodingStyles to gain acceptance.
The only question is how this happens. Should the XMLP WG define a default
encodingStyle? Should it simply adopt the one from the SOAP spec? Should
this problem be turned over to some other W3C WG, like the XML Schema WG? Or
should the W3C not get involved at all and let the marketplace sort out the
winner(s)?

Frank DeRose

Received on Wednesday, 28 March 2001 17:30:23 UTC