New (?) issue : SOAP module specifications

Good day, all!

Many moons ago, Paul Denning, David Clay, and myself took an action to start writing up a "module template" to essentially describe the framework for writing a SOAP 1.2 extension.  For various reasons, this work fell by the wayside, but I note that we haven't come back to it or replaced it with anything else.

I think it's critical that we have some section somewhere offering some guidance as to how to do this, since this is ostensibly going to be one of the major extensibility mechanisms by which a lot of people build on the platform we are creating.

At a minimum, I would think such a section would indicate that a SOAP extension spec/module:

* MUST identify itself with a URI (this becomes really critical when trying to describe services with something like WSDL, or when doing negotiation with an unknown party)

* MUST clearly specify the content and semantics of the header blocks used to implement the behavior in question

* MUST clearly specify any known interactions with other extensions in terms of semantics or sequence (for instance "this encryption extension will encrypt the contents of the body.  On the receiving end, it MUST run before other extensions which rely on the unencrypted contents of the body.")

* MAY indicate that the extension functions as an implementation of a SOAP feature as defined in sec 3 of part 1.  In this case, the spec must also clearly specify the relationships (if appropriate) between any abstract properties defined in the feature spec (as described in sec 5 of part 2) and concrete instantiations in the SOAP envelope

* SHOULD have a well-defined name of EITHER "SOAP extension" OR "module" :)

I would be happy to take up some of the work on this again, but I'd like to bring it before the group as a whole as what I perceive to be a serious hole in the specs at the moment.  Comments/discussion appreciated.

Thanks,
--Glen

Received on Thursday, 28 March 2002 06:48:07 UTC