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

["Eamon O'Tuathail" <eamon.otuathail at clipcode.com>]

>> Frankly, I don't see what the "abstraction of the transport 
>> layer" provides you.

It means you don't have to define the same things again and again. 

SOAP is important, but there are many others types of messaging - 
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-apex-core-05.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-new-webi-wcip-beep-00.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-idwg-beep-idxp-02.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-provreg-epp-beep-00.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-sacred-protocol-beep-pdm-
00.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-syslog-reliable-12.txt

Are we expected to duplicate and define slightly different variations of
the 50 pages of the BEEP spec inside each of these? And repeat roughly
every 6-8 weeks when the IETF and others start work on a new type of
messaging (e.g. http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/provreg-charter.html).

Rather than concentrating solely on SOAP, we have to consider the wider
picture, and come up with an appropriate solution - in this scenario I
think using BEEP is very sensible. Other people have differing views -
that is fine. Diversity is good!

>> I personally find BEEP quite atrocious. It introduces a "channel" 
>> artifact that is gratuitous complexity; it breaks at least one 
>>fundamental rule of networking, by allowing for multiplexing on 
>>top of TCP.

On the issue of whether BEEP itself is a good idea or not based on these
questions, see:
http://lists.beepcore.org/pipermail/beepwg/2001-July/001210.html

On the issue of "gratuitous complexity":
I can tell you in practical terms it is roughly 50 lines of C# code. 

For those people who - after carefully examining the alternatives for
richer messaging (e.g.
http://www.clipcode.com/peer/http_async_notif.htm) - think BEEP is a
good thing, and now wish to use it to carry SOAP messages - is there
anything technically wrong with, or do you have any suggestions for
improvements to, the SOAP over BEEP spec as proposed?

Eamon