Re: how bad is soap?

[Juergen Schoenwaelder <schoenw@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de>]

>>>>> Patrick R Gili writes:

Patrick> Existing implementations of what? Has someone implemented
Patrick> XMLCONF (or NETCONF, or whatever we're calling it today)?  I
Patrick> would not think that interoperability would be an issue at
Patrick> this point.

I was just saying that using an existing RPC mechanism has the
advantage that there are existing implementations to interface
with.

Patrick> In my experience, the SOAP header will exceed the size
Patrick> of most configuration operations.

Fine. We might have different environments in mind and we do not
have to agree.

Patrick> I realize that the SOAP encoding is XML.  However,
Patrick> I've seen some down-right ugly to read SOAP headers.

I assume you mean SOAP headers as defined in section 4.2 of the SOAP
1.1 specification as follows:

: SOAP provides a flexible mechanism for extending a message in a
: decentralized and modular way without prior knowledge between the
: communicating parties. Typical examples of extensions that can be
: implemented as header entries are authentication, transaction
: management, payment etc.
:
: The Header element is encoded as the first immediate child element of
: the SOAP Envelope XML element. All immediate child elements of the
: Header element are called header entries.

Sure, if you put complexity there such as authentication machinery,
then header becomes longer and harder to read. But will it be
substantially different from an xmlconf over beep message with
apropriate security?

Patrick> Observe that I am not presenting an argument against using
Patrick> SOAP.  I just want to make sure that we talk through all the
Patrick> salient points of why or why not to employ SOAP for the
Patrick> purposes of this solution.

Sure, I also just want to make sure we understand why existing RPC
mechanisms simply do not work here and why the costs for a new special
purpose RPC mechanism are well justified. And to really get there, I
think someone has to play devils advocate and right now, it looks like
I end up having this role. ;-)

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder		International University Bremen
Phone: +49 421 200 3587		P.O. Box 750 561, 28725 Bremen, Germany
Fax:   +49 421 200 3103		<http://www.iu-bremen.de/>

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