RE: Who Faulted (was RE: Proposed rewrite of Part 1, section 2 (l ong) )

Hi Henrik,

> I agree with Jacek that it seems problematic to distinguish between node
> and actor.

Well... we make a distinction in our spec. just by having the two terms
(Node and Actor) and defining one in relation to the other.

Incidentally, 'SOAP Node' seems to be defined in the glossary whereas 'SOAP
Actor' is not. Actor gets introduced in the first sentence of Part 1 Section
2.2: 

"In processing a SOAP message, a SOAP node is said to act in the role of one
or more SOAP actors, each of which is identified by a URI known as the SOAP
actor name."

> I think we have to be careful with our use of the term "role"
> and "actor" as I don't think the analogy with the silver screen holds.
> There, the term "role" implies that there is an actor and that the actor
> has a name that is different from the role. 

Usually... although there are rare cameo's where individuals are credited
with playing "Himself" and I guess there are rare cases where the name of
the character just happens to be the same as the name of the role, and the
occasional bio-pic where we have an actor playing the role of another actor.

Anyway... it's not clear to me in what way you regard the analogy as
breaking.

> That is, we can have "Sean
> Connery" (the actor) acting as "James Bond" (the role) and normally we
> distinguish between referring to Sean or to James as they are different
> entities. Furthermore, it is only under certain conditions that "Sean
> Connery" and "James Bond" are the same, "James Bond" could also refer to
> "Roger Moore" and so on.

So... are you saying that we need be careful when using an identifier to be
clear about whether we're identifying an actor or a role?

We seem to have three terms, Node, Actor and Role. However I think we only
really have two concepts... a thing that takes action and some mode of
action.

                        | Current WD |Editors proposal
------------------------+------------+-----------------
thing that takes action | Node       | Actor/Node
some mode of action     | Actor      | Role

Personally, from the point-of-view of the narrative, I prefer the editiors
proposal and I'd regard the terms SOAP Actor and SOAP Node synonymous (under
the editor proposal...).

> In the current SOAP model, we only have one identifier which is the
> value of the actor attribute.

I think we have many identifiers and one attribute.

>  Any form of "equality" between references
> has to be determined out of band. For example, our "next" URI defines
> out of band (in prose in our spec) that it is equal to any identifier
> identifying the receiving SOAP Node when it is present in a SOAP
> message. 

I think we have a problem here that mixes between between identifiers and
the things they denote.

> The equality could also be stated declaratively as a set of
> statements asserting that two identifiers are the same under certain
> conditions, or it could be determined implicitly by some resolver
> mechanism.
> 
> Note that we say nothing about *how* one resolves the actor name as
> resolution is a matter of trust. That is, I can have names that are
> resolved to identify a specific SOAP node using some out of band
> mechanism or names that are resolved using DNS. The "next" URI is an
> example of the former.

Hmmmm... what specific SOAP node does the "next" URI identify?

> For better or for worse, I think the current description in SOAP 1.2,
> part 1 section 2 is adequate and consistent with the general Web
> architecture of URI references. I therefore suggest that we 
> leave it as is.

I don't think anyone as made any arguement either way about its consistency
with Web Architecture. I think that the proposal from the editors has been
motivated primarily from the point-of-view of clarity of the narrative and
consistency with the commonly held meanings of words like actor and role.

> 
> Henrik

Regards

Stuart

Received on Friday, 1 February 2002 11:04:51 UTC