Issue 153: overlapping section 2 and 4

Doug has pointed out that section 2.2 (SOAP actors and nodes) was
largely a duplicate of section 4 (presumably section 4.2.2).

Having looked into this issue some more, I believe this issue is
not just around section 2.2 and section 4.2.2, but also involved
sections 2.3, 2.4, 4.2.3 and 4.3.1.

There are three main alternatives:

  1. Leave things as is. I don' think this is an option; this
     will create confusion in people's head and make the spec
     more difficult to maintain.
  2. Trim down (or completely remove) sections 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4,
     and move the corresponding text to sections 4.2.2, 4.2.3 and
     4.3.1.
  3. Trim down instead sections 4.2.2, 4.2.3 and 4.3.1, and
     (possibly) move the corresponding text to sections 2.2, 2.3
     and 2.4.

Today, section 4 does not only specify the format of the
envelope, but also, to a certain extent, how an evelope should be
processed; whilst section 2 does not only describe how a message
should be processed, but also, to a certain extent, what its
format is.

Option 2 and 3 above each go further the route of separating
format from processing, although a complete separation might be
difficult to achieve.

It is also worth noticing that section 2 (largely) treats header
and body blocks interchangeably, which I think is the right way
to go, as far as the processing model is concerned; whilst
section 4 clearly distinguishes between header and body blocks.

Option 3 above would help describe processing in terms of blocks,
independently of whether blocks are header blocks or body blocks.

The editors would welcome feedback on how to best resolve this
issue.

Jean-Jacques.

Received on Tuesday, 30 October 2001 05:53:45 UTC