Re: Web Service 'IPersist' Interface?

Thanks for the reply, comments inline below.

>I'm not sure what you mean by "XSD based spec", so it's hard to say.
>You mean XML Schema datatypes, I assume?  How would those replace
>HTTP methods?

Apologies, I'm probably using the wrong terms. I meant a specification that
is a building-block above SOAP that describes the basic 'data provider'
behaviour in an early-binding way within WSDL. For example, if I see:

<wsse:Security
xmlns:wsse="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/04/secext">

within the services WSDL then I can infer that the service is expecting
some conformance to the WS Security specification.

>Sure, you could specify HTTP methods or equivalents in WSDL.  I guess
>the question would be, why? 8-)

Consistency with my other WSDL?

> WSDL is a design-time artifact, whereas
>you know that a resource is an HTTP resource at runtime, by looking
>at the URI scheme. e.g. if you see http://www.yahoo.com, you know that
>you can use HTTP methods, or if you see ftp://example.org/foo.zip, you
>know that you can use FTP methods.  Very different than with WSDL, where
>you have to know the type of the service *before* you invoke the
>methods.  It's a much earlier form of binding than the Web uses.

Good point. But how can I tell that the SOAP node will support the entire
protocol without having to just 'try it'. I don't really know that
http://www.yahoo.com will support my DELETE request? Also (detach from
reality for a moment :) what about SOAP over other protocols than HTTP?

I guess I was alway framing my thoughts/questions in regards to early-bind
WSDL which is why I fell sideways :) when you suggested HTTP methods.

>I guess this relates to the comment in your other message, about having
>trouble reconciling the document-centric use of HTTP and its methods,
>with the RPC use of SOAP.  It *should* be difficult to do this, because
>the two approaches are mostly at odds with one another, especially when
>the common use of SOAP, and the libraries that support this use, eschews
>the use of URIs.

So I've picked RPC as I need to describe complex behaviour in web services
but want to find a convention in revealing to people that I do support
Get/Put/Delete (or Load/Save/Remove) (or Read/Write/Destroy) (or
Consiga/Puesto/Cancelación :) of my 'objects/docs' without ambiguity in
names.

>BTW, I should state a disclaimer; I think that Web services are a huge
>waste of time, and that they completely disregard pretty much all of the
>important contributions that the Web has made to the design of large
>scale distributed systems.  So hearing me espouse the value of using
>HTTP's methods (and extension methods) shouldn't be too surprising;
>I'm like a broken record in that way. 8-)

Yep, but you took the time to reply, made me think some more and for that
I'm grateful.

Thanks,
David

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