Re: service references (was: Re: WSA diffs from REST)

Anne Thomas Manes wrote:
> Hmmm ...
> 
> Good idea. There's no reason (that I can think of at the moment) why WASP
> server couldn't generate a URI rather than an instance ID for the service
> instance.

The usual reason for decisions like that is to be transport independent. 
  My thought is that the HTTP variant should be optimized for HTTP, even 
if you happen to have other variants.

 >  The WASP runtime can just as easily map the URI as it does the
> instance ID. I'll pass the idea by the chief architect.

Great!

Just to be clear, I'm suggesting that there be a single URI for what you 
currently use both a URI and an instance ID for. One easy way to achieve 
that is:

http://....../purchaseorders?instanceID=FOOBAR

> It's that old CORBA/app server architecture mindset that permeates our
> thinking: We have a single access point to a service, and our runtime does
> the appropriate magic to map the request to an appropriate service instance.

Even in CORBA, each object has its own ObjectID. People tend to think of 
the URI as the "protocol" access point on the Web, but really the TCP/IP 
port is the access point. URIs should be analogous to ObjectIDs, not ports.

  Paul Prescod