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Don Box on WS-Mex
Kim Cameron pointed to my questions about WS-Mex and Don Box gave his reasons for why WS-Mex is needed over and above simple HTTP. I think it basically comes down to the fact that SOAP and its related protocols are, ideally, transport neutral. WS-Mex is one component of that transport neutrality. In fact, in doc/literal mode SOAP is really nothing more than transport anyway. Like many things in Computer Science, SOAP is simply another layer of indirection and the costs and benefits of indirection layers are well understood. WS-Mex is one way of preserving the SOAP-as-transport indirection.
Posted by windley on May 2, 2005 9:23 PM
Comment from Patrick Logan at May 3, 2005 11:48 AM
"the costs and benefits of indirection layers are well understood"
Generally I agree we can say there are costs *and* benefits, and we know what to look for in terms of "coupling loosely" and measuring impacts.
But in this case is SOAP *another* level of indirection vs. HTTP or just an alternate level of indirection? i.e. should we perhaps expect HTTP in more places than we have it today if we look at HTTP as an application protocol rather than a transport protocol?
For example, consider the Java peer-to-peer sockets project. Any application protocol implemented using sockets can run on some peer-to-peer topology. We seem to be in a world that is more like a mobius strip than the expected 7-layer model!
Is HTTP itself a level of indirection, and is it sufficent?