I'm so glad that Roy had the guts to speak up as he did. I've been saying basically the same thing in the XML Protocol WG since I joined when it started. I've also done my part to ensure that SOAP can be used in a Web architecture friendly way, but given that I've only seen two companies use it this way (my company, and KnowNow), I don't have much hope that SOAP will see more success than CORBA did on the Internet (read; "little to none").

On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 04:14:49PM -0700, David Orchard wrote:

This is demonstrably not true; they are not responsible users, because they fail to work within the constraints imposed by the architecture (as commonly used).

Web architecture is a *very* difficult thing to understand. For most people whose exposure to distributed systems has been limited to RPC and messaging, it is unlike both, and so it's no surprise at all that so many people have gravitated to Web services; they're familiar.

IMO, the closest "popular" non-Web architectural style to the Web's would be a tuple space, such as is seen in Linda or JavaSpaces. But it's more general than even tuple spaces. And obviously more successful.

Without a doubt, Web services are important to the membership. Nobody would argue with that. The question being asked is, are Web services important to the Web? Do they help lead the Web to its full potential? Roy, myself, and everybody else I've talked to who understands Web architecture, agrees that they don't.

But let me be clear about my position. The *goal* of Web services is an admirable one, and I fully support what people are trying to accomplish with them. The only issue is, *HOW* do we best use the Web to achieve these goals? All goals *are* achievable, just in a different way than Web services proponents advocate. To demonstrate that this isn't an academic exercise, as some have suggested, my company sells software that incorporates many of my ideas in this space.

So, how do we proceed from here? IMO, we need some Web services proponents to have an open mind and admit that they might be wrong (this is how I learned it). Then we need those who do understand Web architecture to give them a crash course. I would be happy to help out here.