Lemon get this straight…
From: Ken Laskey [mailto:klaskey@mitre.org]
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 11:33
PM
To: Francis McCabe
Cc: soa-rm-ra
Subject: Re: [soa-rm-ra] reaching
closure on Action
On Jun 10, 2008, at 11:17 PM, Francis McCabe wrote:
In Cayenne
...
On Jun 10, 2008, at 7:31 PM, Ken Laskey
wrote:
In orange...
On Jun 10, 2008, at 8:41 PM, Francis McCabe wrote:
In Magenta...
On Jun 10, 2008, at 2:52 PM, Ken Laskey
wrote:
Then my responses must be in Lime.
On Jun 10, 2008, at 4:37 PM, Francis McCabe wrote:
My responses in Strawberry...
On Jun 10, 2008, at 11:21 AM, Ken Laskey
wrote:
OK, let's see if we're getting somewhere?
P.S. This has to be resolved before we run out of distinct colors.
On Jun 10, 2008, at 1:54 PM, Francis McCabe wrote:
On Jun 10, 2008, at 10:02 AM, Ken Laskey
wrote:
I changed the color of a few lines below to red because these start
getting to my questions.
Now while I'd still like you (or someone else) to respond to the
questions below (timestamp 6:59 AM) as stated, I can infer from your response
that anything done by a speaker with the purpose of applying intent is
Action on the part of the speaker, whether or not it is effective. At a
minimum, it requires a listener to have any chance to be effective.
However, from the context of the speaker, it is an action either way.
Yes.
If a listener hears what the speaker says, we have joint action, in the
form of CA.
Yes.
This still doesn't tell me how CA does something (i.e. the
initiating activity) to get something done, i.e the RWE.
Also, what is the intent applied by the listener? Is it simply to
hear what a speaker says? At a minimum, it should probably also be interpreting
the message and deciding if it is part of the Action Model of the service it is
listening for.
However, I think that this is where the counts-as relation comes in to
play. For the listener to understand that a CA is supposed to result in a
service action, the listener must apply that relation. In effect, there is a
shift going on from communication actions to service actions.
You just can't say counts-as and sweep it under the rug.
How specific do we need to get? I do not feel a need to sweep stuff
under the carpet.
As I think Rex noted, we are changing modes. The sp aker
successfully sent the message because the listener received and was able to
accurately interpret it. I believe this requires more than would be
required of a traditional listener. Is this correct?
Not really. But there is an unknowable
gap here: there is no way that an external observer can determine if a listener
has understood something accurately. We should not require this.
In the nominally successful (even less
than ideal) situation, this is what happens. For the current discussion,
the unknowable gap should also be unmentionable.
I agree. That implies that the only
semantics that we can be concerned about is so-called public semantics. That in
turn imp ies that anything that goes on as a result of a service being acted on
is either in the public description of the RWE or does not happen -- from the
perspective of an external observer.
So, any discussion of follow on
activities within a service is out of bounds. That pushes the focus back to the
Service Action.
Almost. There is an activity
initiation related to the public message. The details after that are
private unless there is a Process Model, and then we need an activity
initiation for each public step.
The CA phase is done and the service action phase begins. The
message is one recognized by the service Action Model and the listener or the
someone/something for which listening is being done will then initiate activity
in response to the interpretation of receiving the message and processing its
payload.
I have heartburn with Rex's view of
events. This phase model may be helpful for many people; but this is a
realizing SOA concept not a EcoSystem concept. For the EcoSystem view, the
counts-as relation seems more appropriate.
At this
point, I don't care which view we will have which pieces of the discussion, but
I am concerned that we know what we mean. If I'm playing cards and claim
the remaining tricks, this counts-as playing out the hand and winning the
tricks individually. If I leave a message with my daughter to give to my
wife, this does not count-as giving the message to my wife. I feel the
same kind of disconnect with the CA/SA gap. We need to say something
about bridging the gap.
One of the key assumptions of the public
semantics is that the medium of communication 'works'. If the medium is not
reliable, then that must be accounted for.
As far as the CA/SA gap, what counts-as
is doing is connecting two separate systems of ' ogic'. I can see rules that
look like:
<msg><service
name="yourService"><action
name="doSomething"><parameter>With This</parameter></action>...
counts-as yourService.doSomething(With This)
(Fictitious example obviously).
Why can't we just say you send a message to
a service telling it to do something? It's straightforward, catches the
jointness of the speaker and the listeners, gets RWE accomplished. Are
there details of communication theory we are ignoring? You bet! And
after all this discussion, I think we'll be less complete in areas where we
don't need to strain the reader's attention.
The activity results in RWE which are specific things that constitute
providing the described business functionality. There may be a Process
Model that defines intermediate public steps. Each of these will require
a successful CA that leads to initiating required action and further RWE, and
this continue until the processing is complete.
Language" by Herbert Clark. It is pretty informal
but gives an
excellent account of the concepts involved in human communication, and
by extension computer communication.
Essentially, the bottom line is that both speaker and listener are
actively involved, and that the communication has not happened without
both participating. And he also addresses (not in the same language)
the counts-as relationship.
As for denial of service, etc., I agree that willingness is an
essential part of what is going on. hence the active role of both
Frank /div>
On Jun 9, 2008, at 6:08 PM, Laskey, Ken wrote:
> In email , I'll buy that the speaker creates and sends the
message,
> but the listener only becomes aware that the message exists.
The
> speaker assumes whatever is listening will initiate the activity
of
> opening and reading. As with a denial of service attack
where it is
> appropriate to withhold/withdraw willingness, whatever has the
> listener may not process the email if they suspect embedded
malware.
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Mon 6/9/2008 7:54 PM
> Subject: Re: [soa-rm-ra] reaching closure on Action
> No, this does not get the join action spect.
> I admit that I thought some about the Patient in a CA. I believe
that
> the Patient in a CA is the medium of communication. We jointly act
on
> the email medium when we communicate by email. It is a little
tricky
> because there is some danger of infinite regress:
> I act on an email to compose it and to push it into the Internet.
You
> act on the email to open it and read it. But these actions are the
> actions of Speaking and Listening respectively. The Joint CA is
the
> combination of the two. In that world, we are using the Internet
> (actually SMTP) as a means of communicating and we act on it by
> sending and receiving messages (the messages become the
Instruments of
> On Jun 9, 2008, at 3:59 PM, Ken Laskey
wrote:
> > CA -> Agent -> Speaker=Initiator
> > CA -> Instrument -> Message[Do
ServiceActionPerformative]
> > CA -> Patient -> Listener=Service
> > CA -> Verb -> CA_Performative
> > where I assume CA_Performative is pass message. I can't
see having
> > two Agents and no Patient.
> > For a ServiceAction SA, we get
> > SA -> Agent -> Initiator
> > SA -> Instrument -> CA
> > SA -> Patient -> Service
> > SA -> Verb -> ServiceActionPerformative
> > Is ServiceActionPerformative what I have called Initiating
Activity?
> > On Jun 9, 2008, at 6:48 PM, Francis McCabe wrote:
> >> There is nothing about intent that denies join intent. A
joint
> >> action necessarily implies joint intent -- both speak and
listener
> >> intend that there be a communication.
> >> And es, the communicative action involves *both* the
sender and
> >> And no, the service action is *not* singular: it is the
actor
> >> acting on the acted.
> >> If we expand the ontology of action a little bit:
> >> Action -> Instrument
> >> where Agent is the entity performing the action,
Instrument is the
> >> tool with which the action is performed, Patient is the
target of
> >> the action and Verb is the action being performed.
> >> Then, for a CA, we get
> >> CA -> Agent -> [Speaker=Initiator,
Listener=Service]
> >> CA -> Instrument -> Message[Do
ServiceActionPerformative]
> >> CA -> Patient -> None
> >> CA -> Verb -> CA_Performative
> >> For a ServiceAc ion SA, we get
> >> SA -> Agent -> Initiator
> >> SA -> Instrument -> CA
> >> SA -> Patient -> Service
> >> SA -> Verb -> ServiceActionPerformative
> >> The counts-as relation has to map the two actions,
probably as here
> >> by linking the Instrument of the CA to different parts of
the SA,
> >> as well as some implied linking between Listener/Service
etc..
> >> This is probably a whole lot more detailed than we should
go into
> >> in the spec; but if *we* need to to convince ourselves,
so be it :)
> >> On Jun 9, 2008, at 2:24 PM, Ken
Laskey wrote:
> >>> I still have the question of whether Action as the
application of
> >>> intent requires a receipt of that intent. This
is back to the
> >>> singular vs. communicative nature of the Action.
>>> If the message is the Action, then the Action has to be
both the
> >>> sending AND receiving of the message in order for it
to be a
> >>> communicative action. Intent sounds like one
way; it is my
> >>> motivation and the action is my acting on that
motivation, but
> >>> that is all separate from the receiver.
> >>> The Service Action, OTOH, is singular on the side of
the service/
> >>> receiver. The service Action Model delineates
what messages need
> >>> to be sent in order for certain
"activities" to be carried out,
> >>> leading to certain RWE. The Action Model exists
independent of a
> >>> The Communicative Action CANNOT count-as the Service
Action
> >>> because one requires a speaker and the other does
not.
> >>> On Jun 9, 2008, at 1:13 PM, Francis McCabe wrote:<
div>
> >>>> I believe that there are 4 'concepts' of action
involved:
> >>>> 1. The abstract sense of Action. Application of
intent etc.
> >>>> 2. Abstract Joint Action (which is either a
subclass of Action or
> >>>> a particular use of Action; not sure of the right
relationship).
> >>>> 3. Communicative Action (which is a subclass of
Abstract Joint
> >>>> 4. Service Action which is an Action against a
Service (which is
> >>>> described in the Action Model and the Process
Model)
> >>>> 3. and 4. are connected via the counts-as
relationship:
> >>>> A valid Communicative Action counts as a Service
Action
> >>>> At some level, all of these should be introduced
and explained in
> >>>> n Jun 6, 2008, at 12:02 PM, Ken Laskey wrote:
> >>>>> Dear Fellow Explorers,
> >>>>> We've had some very stimulating discussions
over the past few
> >>>>> weeks but I feel there are other things
caught in limbo until we
> >>>>> reach some consensus. I don't think we
are plagued by major
> >>>>> disagreements but rather the different facets
of complexity for
> >>>>> the range of things we want to capture and
make understandable
> >>>>> to a wider audience.
> >>>>> So I think we need a plan for how to
proceed. The elements of
> >>>>> such a plan would cover
> >>>>> 1. capturing the different facets;
> >>>>> 2. capturing where in the document these
facets currently live;
> >>>>> 3. work a consistent understanding that
covers all the facets.
> >>>>> Unfortunately, this is not an 80-20 situation
because a standard
> >>>>> that only covers 80% of the scope is looking
for trouble.
> >>>>> Now I would suggest an extended call (all
day?) but I realize we
> >>>>> are all busy and that may not be
feasible. What's more is it
> >>>>> may not be productive unless we have all the
background material
> >>>>> together going in.
> >>>>> As a precursor to an extended meeting (or
even a regular
> >>>>> meeting), is it possible for us to have a
short list of
> >>>>> questions and for the author of each section
to satisfy items 1
> >>>>> and 2 above through the answers? Would
that be enough to help
> >>>>> structure a productive (and hopefully not too
long) call?
> >>>>> I haven't yet considered the questions, but
figured I'd float
> >>>>> the idea and see if someone came up with
something better.
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