[take 2] can the process model of a service use actions other than in action model?

[michael.poulin@uk.fid-intl.com]

Ken,

you are absolutely right with the WSDL (sorry for the dirty word too). This interface does not specify ( and should not specify ) any order of operation invocations. Each operation is self-sufficient and self-contained ( the same relates to the REST Web Services)

This means the FixVehicle service operation DoWork might not know that you dealt with the service before and got EstimateResponse. It is the consumers responsibility to maintain a conversation identifier, i.e. state identifier, and submit it to each independent service operation (this is the Best Practice for Web Services) to point to potentially stored state somewhere.

Process Model encourages a process, i.e. ordered sequence of activities (Actions). This is fine for the service implementation but better be not applied to the pair of consumer-service. Nobody can dictate consumer which service operation use in which order. (this is why in my example with calculation I wrapped all Actions into the process INSIDE the service).

In other words, Process Model is NOT applicable to the Actions against service but only to the service's Actions. (There is no way to implement Process Model to the Activities against service while keeping consumer and service as loosely-coupled entities; process creates coupling). This is the point I'm trying to make.

- Michael