Re: WSDL 1.2 drops use="encoded"

* Jacek Kopecky <jacek@systinet.com> [2003-03-06 22:53-0500]
> 
> Rich,
> 
> I've been bringing this issue up in XMLP and in WS-Desc for some time
> now, but I don't seem to be persuasive enough.
> 
> If you and other people come to one of the groups and say you need SOAP
> 1.2 Encoding supported directly in WSDL 1.2 because you actually need
> SOAP Encoding, the groups would probably work on the schema language. I
> don't think this is an issue of resources because I'd happily volunteer
> to do an initial proposal, as I believe I've said before.
> 
> The alternative to inventing a SOAP Data Model Schema Language was to
> specify precisely how XML Schema works with use="encoded", which I
> believe would have been much more work to get right and sort out all the
> corner cases.
> 
> So, voice your needs! Many (including myself) seem to share the
> understanding that people are shying away from SOAP Encoding. This may
> be because XML is just sufficient, or it may be because SOAP Encoding
> doesn't play nicely with XML Schema and there are no alternatives as
> yet.

I share your concerns. It feels that SOAP Encoding is becoming a 
second-class citizen in a spec that hasn't even reached REC status at W3C yet.
If Encoding is bad, let's say so now, rather than damning it with faint 
praise. If, on the other hand, it can be deployed usefully by properly 
documenting its usage patterns in a graph-oriented schema of some kind, then 
let's see some more active exploration of that idea. If XMLP are too busy 
to take on such a work item, folk could still explore the idea on a mailing
list (here? www-ws?). In my experience the worst thing about Encoding 
is that many folk use it with an 'we don't have to document our protocol 
because we can just dump and restore programmatic objects in XML' attitude. The 
lack of an appropriate schema framework for Encoding seems to encourage this.

(my personal opinion only, fwiw...)

Dan

Received on Friday, 7 March 2003 07:17:41 UTC