RE: WSA diffs from REST

Geoff,

I, and others, share your concern about what an architecture is/isn't [1].
It's really too bad that we don't have an agreed upon definition of
architecture.   The possibility of even more discussion about what we should
discuss terrifies me, and I get to deal with it in 2 w3c groups :-(  I don't
want to think about the possibility of the TAG and ws-arch having different
definitions of architecture either.  Though we've certainly danced around
the topic.

Cheers,
Dave

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Sep/0000.html

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Geoff Arnold [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 2:40 PM
> To: Mark Baker
> Cc: David Orchard; [email protected]
> Subject: Re: WSA diffs from REST
>
>
>
> On Thursday, September 19, 2002, at 04:46  PM, Mark Baker wrote:
> > Software architecture is the architecture *of* implementation;
> >
> >   "A software architecture is an abstraction of the
> run-time elements
> > of
> >    a software system during some phase of its operation.[...]"
> > --
> > http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/
> > software_arch.htm#sec_1_1
>
> Your interpretation of Fielding's (somewhat ambiguous)
> definition seems
> to
> suggest that an architecture is coupled to an implementation.
> That is
> certainly
> not a particular common position (though I'm sure we have all
> encountered
> post-hoc architectures). A more common usage runs something like this:
>
>     A software architecture describes the structural properties of
> software,
>     typically the components and their interrelationships,
> and guidelines
>     about their use.
>
> This is taken from
> http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/adml/background.htm
> which introduces the Open Group's Architecture Description Markup
> Language,
> part of TOGAF (which evolved from the DOD TAFIM (Technical
> Architecture
> Framework for Information Management). The point is that the
> components
> and
> their structural relationships are not necessarily coupled to any
> particular
> implementation technology. It makes sense to ask whether a particular
> system implementation *conforms* to such an architecture. You seem to
> be saying that that would be a tautology....
>
> (I have to say that I don't like Fielding's definition at
> all, the more
> I look at it. Read literally, it means that an architecture can change
> from one "phase of operation" to the next. That's just plain
> weird, and
> seems completely incompatible with common usage.)
>
> Geoff
>
>
>
>