Re: Larger than 32bit signed?

I agree in principle that if a specification resists
to change, it starts gathering dust. However, the
biggest problem that I see with an evolutionary step
of XML-RPC would be that we would not move to version
2, but we would start forking to many alternative new
versions. That would happen especially if XML-RPC is
successful; just like what is apparently happening
with SOAP, since there are large commercial interests,
there are still problems with interoperability of
implementations by Microsoft, Sun, and others. So this
extension would be in danger of ending up the same way
as all previous middleware standards (DCOM, CORBA,
RPC, now SOAP) - it would essentially not fulfill its
purpose of being one simple and universal standard for
communication between clients and servers.

I would accept the need for change if there turned out
to exist some functionality that cannot be expressed
with the existing data types of XML-RPC. However, with
integers, strings and base64 for arbitrary binary
data, and with arrays and structures, one can express
pretty much anything. Granted, some things may be
artificial, but I believe it's a small price to be
paid for the benefit of universal inteoperability.

These are my reasons for arguing against extending
XML-RPC. I allow to be convinced otherwise, if someone
comes with good arguments. We don't have to wait for
Dave Winer, he cannot prevent us from coming up with a
new standard. He can only prevent us from calling it
XML-RPC, but that is not a problem. Maybe I am still
too new at XML-RPC community, but the only reason for
change that I see at this point is to overcome the
connection with HTTP as the transport protocol. That
is artificial and unnecessary. (For example, that
means that if you use Jabber as transport, you cannot
call the data standard XML-RPC, you have to call it
Jabber-RPC just because of this limitation.)

Aleksandar




 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xml-rpc/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    [email protected]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/