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

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

On Mon, 10 Sep 2001 ned.freed at mrochek.com wrote:

> > ... because the IETF did IP and has the interest in IP.
> 
> > In SOAP over BEEP, W3C did SOAP and has the interest in SOAP, so that
> > would make SOAP-over-BEEP the W3C's problem.
> 
> > In general, I think that foo-over-blah is the foo group's problem.
> 
> In general this cannot be right, since it would make all problems the
> responsibility of whoever is responsible for a given application and eliminate
> the IETF entirely.

...which is reasonable.

Consider the alternative, where foo-over-blah is the blah group's
problem, and the guys thinking about the physical layer get hamstrung
with responsibility for absolutely everything.


> Example: HTTP began as HTML over TCP, so it is the W3C's
> problemn. Repeat with TCP, IP, whatever.
> 
> Problems need to be solved by the people with the competence and interest to do
> so. And in this case the W3C has said they have neither.

odd. they've got all the SOAP people, after all.

 
> > > The simple fact is that "convergence" layer protocols, that allow one
> > > protocol to work on top of another, are separate specification efforts from
> > > either of the protocols being converged.  It is not automatically better to
> > > have the "top" or the "bottom" layer originating standards group do the
> > > convergence protocol.
> 
> > Meeting the needs of the top layer is imo best understood by the
> > top-layer group, which works within the framework already established
> > by the bottom-layer group. That way you may well end up with something
> > sucky, but at least it should be adequate to the needs of the top
> > layer.
> 
> That's exactly the logic that has led to bad protocol designs so many
> times in the past.

There are bad protocol designs and there are good protocol designs.
Many are produced using similar methodologies; it's hardly the only
defining factor.

care to give specific examples?

L.

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