WS-Speculations

20 years ago

Tim Bray writes about WS-Good Practices and WS-Theory and concludes:

I think somebody needs to stand up and start waving a flag that’s labeled ‘WS-Simplification’ or ‘Real Web Services’ or something, that’s all about building applications with what’s here today and what works today: XML, HTTP, URIs, SOAP, WSDL, and that’s about it.

Tim, here is a flag:

The Reference Profile is the Danish e-Government Interoperability Framework. Though the framework covers more than WS-technologies, these are an important part of the framework.

We have lots of XML – 32 out of the 107 included standards are XML-related – and of course we have HTTP. We acknowledge SOAP and WSDL as mature enough for “real” usage, and do also hold UDDI on “yellow”. Hmm. URIs – where do these go as far as being “standards”?

Tim Bray also writes about HTTP over SOAP ?!?!?, about the new W3C Working Draft on SOAP Resource Representation Header, where he reveals the secret of Australian sheep counters, who can glance at a gaggle of hundreds or even thousands of sheep and in an instant tell you the exact count: “The trick is, they count the legs and divide by four.”

The reference profile has been in a public hearing which has just ended (although we are not strict with the deadline, so if you want to submit a comment, do so anytime).

We have received comments from a variety of public and private organisations – from the Danish DoD over IBM to the local Linux user group. I am yet to dig deeper into them, but a quick scan shows that we have successfully delivered a much-requested deliverable. Expectedly, there are a number of “issues”, but almost none that surprised me and weren’t on my to-do list already. That list is pretty long, however.

We are now gathering a strong team who will join forces on making the reference profile even better. The final verison 1 should be ready before the summer. We will approve it in the National ITA Committee on 10 June.

Interested in joining our team? We have a half-year replacement position open in NITA. Ideal for a newly graduated. Get in touch, if you are interested.