Re: Last Call: Using SOAP in BEEP to Proposed Standard

[Lloyd Wood <l.wood at eim.surrey.ac.uk>]

On Mon, 10 Sep 2001, Dave Crocker wrote:

> Computer Science discussions sometimes combine the exchange rules and the 
> format and sometimes treat them separately.  hence the term protocol 
> sometimes means exchange rules and content and sometimes means only 
> exchange rules.  For example, SMTP is a protocol, and RFC822 is a 
> format.  They are handled separately.  (Well, technically, RFC822 has a bit 
> of user-to-user protocol in it,

exactly. There's no such thing as a format.

This goes right to Wittgenstein's private language argument, if you
ask me. There's no such thing as a private language; there's no such
thing as a format.

If it's public, it's a protocol; the exchange rules and the format are
interdependent and interwoven to an amazing degree, and if you weren't
exchanging it as information you wouldn't be needing a format for it
in the first place.

That makes everything a protocol, if you ask me.

(btw, does the 'Object' in 'SOAP' have any relation to the 'objects'
 discussed in the http rfcs, and any relation to 'object' as
 understood by computer scientists?)


> for such things as Reply, but mostly it is 
> about formats.)
> 
> In any event, please refer to the IETF/W3C agreement to split HTML and HTTP 
> standardization efforts.

where?


> > > In any event, the specification has been written.  Are there any TECHNICAL
> > > problems with it?
> 
> And now I see that you did not respond to the only important question...

I thought it was ad-hominem.

please see my other responses in this thread. My understanding is that
last calls are not limited only to technical problems - besides, one
man's technical problem is often another man's trifling concern.

L.

of course, I think descartes' mind/body dualism is bunk too.

> Thank you for that bit of philosophy.

<L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>