Re: [soa-rm-ra] Telecon talking points - Action cont'd

[Ken Laskey <klaskey@mitre.org>]

A related idea that follows from my work over the past few day is:  initiating action.

If a service provides a well-defined business function and realizing the RWEs may require several Actions related through the Process Model, then one Action has to be identified as the one that kicks everything off.   In a WSDL (sorry for the dirty word), you have a bunch of operations but other than what you can infer from their names, there is no indication of order or precedence.  The Process Model addresses that.  However, as Michael noted, you may not want to have the formalism of a Process Model for a single-Action service.  Also, while the Process Model packages useful information, a consumer with knowledge of the Initiating Action can begin the interaction and catch up with the process later if it is required to continue the interaction.

So, Initiating Action seems like a useful concept that fits into to sections Jeff suggests (and I concur) we discuss today.

Talk with you soon.

Ken

On Jun 4, 2008, at 10:38 AM, Jeffrey A. Estefan wrote:

Frank,

 

Some recommended talking points for today's telecon.

 

First, we should continue our discussion of action picking up in Sect 3.5 of the RA PRD1.  I think we got a good handle on the content of Sect 3.5.1 last week and the role of [separate] or [individual] action, although we just refer to the term "action."

 

I think for today's discussion, we can skip the Social Actions model described in Sect 3.5.2 and move right to Interaction as Joint Action in Sect 3.5.3 and its close cousin, Semantics of Communication Model in Sect 3.5.4.  (Incidentally, I recommend that you move the definition of Communicative Action from Sect 3.5.4 to the end of Sect 3.5.3, where you first introduced the concept.)

 

What I'd like to see us resolve today is where do messages and message exchange fit into the visual Semantics of Communication Model because, although these concepts are introduced early in the section, they are not formally defined nor modeled.  The text suggests that message are the "medium" of interaction between participants and messages are exchanged that "represent" actions and the reporting of events.  In the supporting visual model shown in Fig 13 (line 830), we see associations between Communicative Action and Action and Event with the label "conveys."  So again, we need to resolve where messages and message exchange fit into the model.  My gut tells me that Message Exchange is related to Communicative Action although it's not yet clear what type of association that is.  Is it a specialization (hierarchy) relationship?  Is it a simple association?  Don't know.  Hopefully, we can clear that up today.

 

Talk to you all soon!

 

 - Jeff

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ken Laskey

MITRE Corporation, M/S H305      phone: 703-983-7934

7515 Colshire Drive                         fax:       703-983-1379

McLean VA 22102-7508