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   RE: [xml-dev] lots of WS reading material

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Because it isn't just Microsoft.  That is the kind 
of argument that steers this away from a technical 
discussion into a bar room brawl.   If it were just 
Microsoft, that would be an issue given their 
installation ubiquity, but it isn't.  There are 
what, a hundred, WSI-O members?  That is a lot 
of ubiks.

There are real technical differences and those do 
matter but to whom and for what is beginning to 
become murky.  There is a lot of code shipping 
based on SOAP.  There is an upgrade for SOAP (1.2) 
and critical papers on critical support needed 
(eg, a security framework).  All of that work 
is going forward with or without the W3C or the TAG.

IMO, there are two issues of importance:

1.  Will SOAP be rearchitected to become RESTful 
    or will SOAP continue to evolve as a separate 
    architecture?

2.  Where will decisions about that be made?

How one is decided will likely influence two. 

The emergence of the W3C proved just how fast 
established standards groups can be pushed 
aside if the vendors back the new players. 

Right now, that GAO report is the real 'berg 
just beneath the surface.  It says plainly 
that the W3C, OASIS, etc. have a lot to do 
to live up to their claims for XML.  The case isn't 
proven and the customers are about to sit 
on their hands.   Meanwhile, SOAP enables 
every coder with a toolkit and a server to 
set up business based on decisions about the 
interface that they solely scope.   How long 
do you think it takes ant hills to overcome 
a few thousand acres of cropland?   

For everyone's sake, let's not pit MS and IBM 
et al against the W3C.  The W3C will lose.  I 
know that isn't the popular or trendy opinion, 
but the rightfulness of Netscape was asserted 
and they ended up just as irrelevant.  The 
superiority of ISO was asserted; ditto.  By the 
same rules, too:  running code and rough consensus, 
programmers and their customers "voting with their 
feet".   REST requires discipline.  SOAP requires 
a toolkit.  How do you think a VB programmer will vote?

Don't turn off your brains.  Turn them on long 
enough to admit that SOAP and REST are two 
different architectures, two different information 
ecosystems nesting in the same medium: the Internet. 
If they can be brought together, rearchitected, 
que bueno.  If not, don't fall on your sword or 
push it into others.   That doesn't make anything 
better. 

XML Doesn't Care about URIs or REST.  That's 
why it will be the survivor.  Now is when 
I'm glad markup won the bracket wars.  When the 
swords turn back into plowshares, it will still 
be here.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Prescod [mailto:paul@prescod.net]
  
   Why would we ever consider technical issues when we could just
   go with the flow and follow Microsoft? I guess that the rest
   of us can just turn off our brains and wait for Microsoft to
   bless technologies. I personally refuse to succumb either to
   the oligopoly or "Neilson ratings" theories of technology.
   There are real, technical differences and those differences
   matter.




 

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