Jon Udell writes the gating
factor is not WSDL syntax. I agree with him
there In the process he identifies a specific problem
and explores some of the ramifications. I agree with his
analysis, up to but not including the conclusion that a deep
changes is required in these languages.
Several points worth exploring based on this example:
- Interfaces change. In a local procedure call, you often
have the source to the requestor and server, and can change both in
synch. Some protocols, like COM, are based on the presumption
that interfaces are immutable, and has this resulted in the
proliferation of interfaces ending with the digit "2" or the
letters "New" or somesuch. A more realistic approach for an
internet protocol designed to not only interoperate across space
but also time is for the protocol to be extensible (that's the "X"
in XML, after all). Named parameter association and
namespaces are key parts of that strategy.
- In this example, the client needed additional information to
interoperate with the server. Other examples will require
other information. This will occur for every language on
every platform - both static and dynamic. The inevitable
conclusion is that some additional metadata needs to be
injected into the process. Different vendors may
approach this different ways.
- However vendors do this, it would be helpful if there were an
interoperable exchange format for this metadata.
- Having servers, clients, and tools that can directly
produce or consume this interoperable metadata format will tend to
increase interoperability across vendors, platforms, and
programming languages. This is good.