[XML-SIG] RE: SOAP for Python

[Uche Ogbuji]

> > Until then, I rely on the fact that section 5 is explicitly optional.  There
> > is no requirement for a SOAP implementation to use the SOAP serialization.
> 
> Technically right, but it would be *very* surprising and upsetting to
> folks who naively used the 4SS implementation to talk to other web
> services.  It might even cause them to spit venom at you.

Usually that's when things become fun.

However, you'll have to explain yourself better.  What is this naivete you're 
talking about?  If they're using a "conformant" SOAP client, there should be 
little such "surprise".  And they certainly should not be upset.

Even Dave Reed of Miccrosoft at XML DevCon was very careful to point out that 
the success of SOAP interop would come with proper handling of SOAP's 
flexibility.  Check your assumptions at the door or prepare to crash and burn.

If the major champion of SOAP can say so, especially after cooking up five of 
their own SOAP implemnentations wand having to (admittedly) force-feed 
themselves interop, I don't see how I can credit your idea that anyone should 
be surprised or upset working with a system that doesn't implement section 5.

> > I'm actually more interested in writing an RDF serialization, and with some
> > support, it's not inconceivable that such a thing would oust section 5 before
> > XML Protocol emerges.
> 
> It's about as likely as someone accepting my DER encoding.

If you think you know the shape of what will come from XP, I think you have 
another thought coming.  The politics that are massed within this group are 
probably even more massed than those of XML Schema, and indeed the XP WG is 
larger than the Schema WG.

I can lay a solid bet that you won't recognize a significant amount of XP from 
what you see in SOAP.

But then again, anyone who followed XML-RPC -> SOAP should realize this isn't 
much of a prediction.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                               Principal Consultant
uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com               +1 303 583 9900 x 101
Fourthought, Inc.                         http://Fourthought.com 
4735 East Walnut St, Ste. C, Boulder, CO 80301-2537, USA
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