- From: <noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com>
- Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 22:10:13 -0400
- To: xml-dist-app@w3.org
(I've been out for a week. If this response is no longer pertinent, apologies in advance.) Long ago in this thread, Jacek Kopecy wrote: >> I agree with Stuart though that once we call >> something a feature, it's not mandatory, it >> MAY be used to gain something. I'm afraid I somewhat disagree, and I think the disagreement is indeed a central issue for this thread. Yes, features are optional in the sense that there is no one feature required of all SOAP implementations, of all SOAP binding specifications etc. However, it is absolutely the case that use of certain features can be mandatory per the specification for a particular binding. Most obviously, use of the Request/Response feature was mandatory in earlier versions of the SOAP HTTP binding. You didn't have the option to use it, you had to use it. Nothing broken there. Now we have the Web Method feature. I can see that there might be reason to debate its design (though I would have much preferred that debate happen before last call). I do not agree that the problem is or can be lack of optionality. It is absolutely coherent for the HTTP binding specification to say: to use this binding, an application MUST make use of the following feature(s). Some of those might be MEPs, some might be other features. Why name it as a feature if in that particular situation it's not optional? Because it correctly describes an interface that may well prove to be common across other bindings. For example, some other binding to HTTP might support the same feature. A binding to HTTPS might support the feature. Even a binding to some non-HTTP protocol that supports REST semantics would probably use the feature. As has been previously noted, the reason it's the Web Method feature and not something else is that it anticipates other REST methods such as DELETE (which would presumably, by the way, use the same MEP as GET). ------------------------------------------------------------------ Noah Mendelsohn Voice: 1-617-693-4036 IBM Corporation Fax: 1-617-693-8676 One Rogers Street Cambridge, MA 02142 ------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Monday, 22 July 2002 22:11:11 UTC