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Subject: Re: [soa-rm-ra] An epiphany


Hi Frank,

You sound infatuated, and I find that concerning. Epiphanies are 
often good and stand the test of time, but I think you need a few 
more days of living with this before the consequences or implications 
manifest more fully to test the premises. In the meantime...

First, a required service description to which a consumer must 
formally agree in a SLA before having their UserNameToken accepted 
for accessing the service goes beyond enabling.

What you're describing sounds like a cultural matrix that only works 
well inside the culture (enterprise level). Cross cultural excursions 
(internet level) can get you into a world of trouble without good 
semantic guides, preferably studied sufficiently beforehand.

Case in point: Go to Morocco and get surprised by limousine service 
that picks you up at the gate to the old part of the capital city 
Rabat, and whisks you away to a formal bedouin dinner starting at 
nearly 10:30 p.m. that doesn't end until dawn, and try to avoid 
giving offense by not eating something from every course that the 
wives of the tribal leaders have spent two days cooking--like a dozen 
courses. Make sure you don't accidentally eat with your left hand (no 
utensils allowed). Of course, you have to do that after pigging out 
in the Medina all day and drinking way too much of the slightly sour 
wine that you've carried around for days in sometimes poorly sealed 
bota bags while traipsing all over the countryside. If you survive, 
you'll have to sleep pretty much for two days around the clock waking 
only to hit the head or latrine, in severe emergency mode. If you're 
22 years old with the constitution of a dray horse, its doable, but...

The point is that doing in Rome as the Romans do can be tricky, and 
shouldn't be left to chance.

Cheers,
Rex

At 8:19 AM -0800 1/17/09, Francis McCabe wrote:
>As far as descriptions is concerned ...
>
>  There is this delicious intersection point where a private action 
>'becomes' public in the sense that a complete understanding of the 
>action is only possible in terms of a public/shared semantics. So, 
>you may need description from a ecosystem perspective to facilitate 
>the sharing of the semantics.
>  However, I would note that (a) descriptions have a facilitating 
>role not an enabling role (an analogy from natural communication: 
>you do not need a dictionary to speak English, but it helps) and (b) 
>it is not clear to me how much we need to elaborate the structure of 
>such a description. In fact, I think we may well be elaborating it 
>too deeply; a feeling that Danny has echoed several times.
>  Systems of systems of systems is not the same as composition of 
>services. It is more about "when in Rome, do as the Romans do..."
>Frank
>On Jan 16, 2009, at 8:30 PM, Ken Laskey wrote:
>
>>Dang, Frank, I go away for a couple days and you go all wacko on me :-)
>>
>>OK, my take.  Of course it has nothing to do with messages.  
>>Information has to get from Participant A to Participant B and 
>>might also depend on information provided by Participants C, D, and 
>>E.  
>>Talking about message exchange buys us three things:
>>
>>1) Everybody exchanges messages now and it gives the RA some 
>>concrete grounding in a space that is familiar to most people.
>>
>>2) I expect there is very little if anything messages add to the RA 
>>than saying you need abstract (and eventually concrete) components 
>>for message passing and processing if you're exchanging messages, 
>>but it gives us the incentive to really consider if messages are 
>>more than a specific use of the SOA machinery that other things 
>>point out.
>>
>>3) I forget right now, but there was a third.
>>
>>As you note, when you access and want to use information you get 
>>from someone else, you have to understand it.  UDDI is based on the 
>>assumption that this is not an issue.  Obviously, those folks never 
>>went to an online vendor and tried to make use of the product 
>>comparison tables.
>>
>>Description has nothing to do with messages, so getting rid of 
>>messages doesn't get rid of description.  Description does, 
>>however, critically need semantic engagement.  That is one of the 
>>drivers for the section of description Danny always wants to kill 
>>because it explicitly points out that whenever you use a term, you 
>>need to disambiguate the vocabulary being used.  This sets the 
>>stage for mediation which is needed all over the place if 
>>independent entities are independently creating and providing 
>>resources.
>>
>>Your system of systems of systems looks nothing more than 
>>compositions at various levels and for various types of resources.  
>>I need more than semantic engagement for the service input values.  
>>I also need it for policies, for technical assumptions, for ... .  
>>That is where the execution context comes in because it is the 
>>collection of the semantic engagements at various levels over the 
>>various aspects of SOA.
>>
>>Now I don't see where this cuts the RA in half.  If it keeps the 
>>length manageable, that's a plus, but I don't yet see it.
>>
>>Ken
>>
>>On Jan 16, 2009, at 12:24 AM, Francis McCabe wrote:
>>
>>>Hi Danny,
>>>I realize that I have some explaining to do...
>>>
>>>I don't see Counts-as as being connected to semantic engagement; 
>>>at least not at the moment.
>>>
>>>Like I said, this is really about the dichotomy/relationship 
>>>between private internal action and publicly shared/understood 
>>>interaction. In my view, the messaging system is, at this level of 
>>>abstraction, simply a medium in which you can have such a public 
>>>interaction. It is necessary to have such a medium because we are 
>>>fundamentally talking about peer-to-peer models crossing ownership 
>>>boundaries.
>>>
>>>On top of this, is the strong intuition that one can have multiple 
>>>layers of ecosystem -- systems of systems of systems etc.
>>>
>>>One of the diagrams that we have drawn internally is like a spider plant:
>>><Spider Plant.pdf><ATT00001.htm>
>>
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Ken Laskey
>>MITRE Corporation, M/S H305      phone: 703-983-7934
>>7515 Colshire Drive                         fax:       703-983-1379
>>McLean VA 22102-7508
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:smime 984.p7s (    /    ) (0118EF86)


-- 
Rex Brooks
President, CEO
Starbourne Communications Design
GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison
Berkeley, CA 94702
Tel: 510-898-0670


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