RE: [wsbpel] Q: process category?

The uniqueness of QNames, URIs etc is undoubtedly a convention, and, as you say, is impossible to enforce “Unless one has complete control of tools, deployment and run-time”. However we rely on this uniqueness all the time, precisely because it is defined as a compliance requirement by the specifications concerned. Why not here?

From: Ron Ten-Hove [mailto:Ronald.Ten-Hove@Sun.COM]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 1:35 PM
To: Satish Thatte
Cc: Sid Askary; wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [wsbpel] Q: process category?

Satish Thatte wrote:

See below

[Ten-Hove] A process category may fall mostly into the "deployment" bucket, and thus be ultra vires. Alternatively, perhaps it would be useful to give each process type a globally unique identifier.

[Satish Thatte] It is easy to manufacture a unique QName from the targetNamespace and NCName of the process -- one may claim that this is in fact implied by the usual semantics of targetNamespaces.

[Ten-Hove] This technique would work, but it is a convention, not a guaranteed property of process definitions. Unless one has complete control of tools, deployment and run-time, a convention cannot be used to guarantee this uniqueness property.

As an alternative to an explicit uuid attribute, we may try adding wording requiring the convention you suggest. Something like:

The name and targetNamespace of the process must be globally unique. If an existing process is modified, the name and/or tns must be modified to ensure that the new version of the process has a unique identity, such that it cannot be confused for the old.

I don't particularly like this -- it sounds a lot like a hack, and makes it sound like we never heard of UUIDs! But personal tastes aside, does this sound reasonable?

Cheers,
-Ron

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