I haven’t had the luxury of a vacation, but took some time off blogging. Partly because I (like Alan) have moved home, and been without net access from home, and partly because I’ve had to concentrate on drafting a policy document about our national IT architecture. I hope I can soon invite reveal what we’re up to, but my boss would kill me if I did so now and here …
Anyway (yeah, right), I’m still concerned about the standardisation processes around web services in general and SOAP in particular (though I realise WSDL and UDDI are equally important).
The most interesting document on this I’ve read for a long while (and I’ve been reading a lot) is Phil Windley’s Enabling Web Services. I must follow up more in details, because there are lots of good points, but also a few places where I disagree: DTDs? No, use XML Schemas, I’d say. WSIL? Hmmm. Maybe, but we (government) need to engage in UDDI too.
In policy-making terms, however, Phil and other RESTians have a particular and peculiar problem: How do you explain what it’s all about in political, non-technical words? I’m a techie, and I hardly understand it. My collegues (and bosses) are political scientists or whatever, and simply don’t get it at all.
What are the core issues? Open standards? Loosely coupled systems? …?
A bit related, but from another area: DestiCorp ‘s White Papers, especially their Dancing with Your Customer: The Next Copernican Revolution and also Why Web Services and Grid Computing will Turn the Travel Industry on Its Head – and Why that’s a Good Thing!.
