Re: [sca-policy] NEW ISSUE: What is the purpose of definitions/bindingelement?

[David Booz <booz@us.ibm.com>]

Anish,

Before I log this as a new issue, did you really intend this for the Policy TC? I would have thought this needed to be debated in either Bindings or Assembly. Policy has nothing to say about the binding element in the definitions file and has no authority over that part of the definitions file. Of course, if you did intend this to go to Policy then I'll log the issue as per process. I just want to make sure of your intentions.

Dave Booz
STSM, BPM and SCA Architecture
Co-Chair OASIS SCA-Policy TC and SCA-J TC
"Distributed objects first, then world hunger"
Poughkeepsie, NY (845)-435-6093 or 8-295-6093
e-mail:booz@us.ibm.com

Anish Karmarkar ---10/13/2009 06:38:19 PM---Title: What is the purpose of definitions/binding element? Target: SCA policy spec (and SCA assembly

From:	Anish Karmarkar <Anish.Karmarkar@oracle.com>
To:	OASIS Policy <sca-policy@lists.oasis-open.org>
Date:	10/13/2009 06:38 PM
Subject:	[sca-policy] NEW ISSUE: What is the purpose of definitions/binding element?

---

Title: What is the purpose of definitions/binding element?

Target: SCA policy spec (and SCA assembly spec/JCA binding)

Description:
The definitions infoset allows <bindingType> and <binding> child 
elements. It is quite easy to see how/why <bindingType> is used for. It 
points to the binding type (eg binding.ws) and specified which intents 
are always provided or can be provided.

But it is not clear what the definitions/binding element would be used 
for. In a composite/CT it is used to declare a binding instance that can 
contain a specific URL for the binding, policySets, etc. Neither the 
policy or the assembly spec explains what this element means when it 
occurs under definitions. AIUI (thanks Dave!), JCA binding uses it to 
specify common configuration information which is then referenced from a 
binding.jca instance. This, seems like a fine thing to do conceptually, 
but an unrestricted definitions/binding element should not be allowed. 
IOW, one should not be allowed to configure a definitions/binding.jca 
that contains a 'uri' attribute. Furthermore, you can't have, say, 
definitions/binding.ws, since it would be meaningless and very confusing.

I would like to point out that we have a similar requirement for 
properties and we use a 'file' attribute on component/property to 
satisfy that requirement. If this need is specific to JCA then I would 
suggest that the JCA binding should deal with this and not the 
policy/assembly specs.

Proposal:
If I got the usage right, then I would suggest getting rid of 
definitions/binding from Policy/Assembly and asking binding.jca to 
define an appropriate element/attribute that would provide an 
indirection for reusable config info.

Thanks.

-Anish
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