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Subject: RE: [wsbpel] BPEL potential issue - no explicit conformance statements
Dear Yaron and others, Well, I assume you have read my proposed resolution of my issue, in which case you will see that I agree with you about not repeating requirements. Or to put it another way state everything once only, somewhere logical (unless there is a very good reason indeed to repeat material - which in my experience is rare even when considering more than one document. You will note that my proposal (which should be treated as a Strawman to provoke thought and to be edited) precisely does not do that but acts more as 'meta data' and provides pointers (references) to the relevant material. I readily admit that the WSDL, SOAP and XML specifications were written better brains than mine, but you will notice that each of these specifications, which are often pointed to as the foundation of web services, and very many others all have a conformance section somewhere. It seems to me that they do so for a very good reason. They answer the questions: 'For what sort of 'things' can conformance to this specification be claimed' , and 'For each such 'things' what must it do, what may it do and what must it not do in order to conform' (by reference to the relevant parts of the specification). I think this is worth stating explicitly, for the avoidance of doubt, even when there is only one sort of 'thing' that could conform. In the case of BPEL we need to think through what can conform. Where in the current specification does it sate what can conform? (If there is such a place then that would be the obvious first place to consider putting the proposed conformance statements / section.) It seems to me that there are at least two sorts of thing that can conform - possibly more. Firstly there is an XML document, which it is claimed is a BPEL process description. Then there is a BPEL execution engine. I suspect that the requirements on the XML document are rather different from those on an execution engine, so with out a single place that acts as a starting point, a road map if you will, you are now asking potential implementers to crawl over the whole specification trying to find all the requirements that apply to them - when not all do - and perhaps leaving room for doubt in some cases as to whether a requirement applies or not. So it is about adding clarity. It may also be that there are statements about conformance of things that we wish to state in the specification for which there is no obvious home editorially speaking. A conformance section provides a tidy home for all such statements, and puts them where they are easy to find. Best Regards Tony A M Fletcher Cohesions (TM) Business transaction management software for application coordination www.choreology.com Choreology Ltd., 68 Lombard Street, London EC3V 9LJ UK Tel: +44 (0) 1473 729537 Fax: +44 (0) 870 7390077 Mobile: +44 (0) 7801 948219 tony.fletcher@choreology.com (Home: amfletcher@iee.org) -----Original Message----- From: Yaron Y. Goland [mailto:ygoland@bea.com] Sent: 28 August 2004 00:23 To: Tony Fletcher Cc: wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: Re: [wsbpel] BPEL potential issue - no explicit conformance statements Please see below Tony Fletcher wrote: > > > Dear Yaron and others, > > I was sort of half expecting someone to raise that point. > I would hate to disappoint. > I currently think the answer is twofold. > > Firstly having a specific section gives implementers a first 'port of > call' > - somewhere they can start there search for precisely what the need to make > their implementation do to conform to the specification - if they should > choose to conform. > I actually think that far from providing a point of call it will cause us to make one of the deadlier mistakes in writing specs - repeating a requirement. Any time a requirement is stated twice that opens the opportunity for confusion and mis-interpretation. That is why good specs make sure to state a particular requirement exactly once. Since the purpose of the spec is to define requirements it would seem reasonable to conclude that the requirements should be stated in the body of the spec. This therefore leaves nothing to be stated in the 'conformance' section other than redundant information. > Secondly, and perhaps this is key, it seems to me that there are > different 'things' that can be claimed to comply (or claimed not to > comply) and I think that different statements apply to each. So I > have suggested different sub-sections for BPEL documents, tools and > engines. Open to suggestions for more or less 'things'. > I think that requirements should be inline with the spec language. If a particular requirement applies to a particular type of BPEL tool then that requirement should be stated explicitly in the spec. One can argue that it would be nice to have a list of pointers to requirements, essentially a table, that applies to particular types of BPEL implementations and I could imagine having an appendix that provided pointers to requirements but that is a far call from a conformance section. > And a third is that it is a good practice that is followed in very > many other specifications such as those for WSDL and XML that BPEL > builds upon. Why did the writers of those specifications see fit to > include explicit conformance sections when they also use the same > language MUST, MAY and SHOULD? Perhaps because someone pointed out to them that some other spec used a conformance section and rather than wondering about it's value they decided to just follow the herd. I wonder about it's value and on balance do not believe it is worthwhile and in fact can be dangerous. Yaron > > Best Regards Tony > A M Fletcher > > Cohesions (TM) > > Business transaction management software for application coordination > www.choreology.com > > Choreology Ltd., 68 Lombard Street, London EC3V 9LJ UK > Tel: +44 (0) 1473 729537 Fax: +44 (0) 870 7390077 Mobile: +44 (0) 7801 > 948219 > tony.fletcher@choreology.com (Home: amfletcher@iee.org) > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Yaron Y. Goland [mailto:ygoland@bea.com] > Sent: 26 August 2004 19:20 > To: Tony Fletcher > Cc: wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org > Subject: Re: [wsbpel] BPEL potential issue - no explicit conformance > statements > > > The BPEL specification already has a very clear conformance statement > in section 2 where it defines MUST, MAY and SHOULD. In reading the > proposed conformance text I don't see anything that isn't redundant > with the existing requirements language in the spec. As such I am > unclear as to what value the proposed text would add. > > Thanks, > > Yaron > > Tony Fletcher wrote: > > > > > Dear Colleagues, > > > > I would like to submit the attached on Conformance. I am sorry to > > have > > only got around recently to waking up to this aspect and doing something > > about it, but I have tried to provide some initial text for others to > > comment on and knock into shape. My aim is to help produce a complete > > and rounded specification and I regard being clear on conformance as an > > important part of this. > > > > > > Best Regards, > > > > Tony / / > > > > / <http://www.choreology.com/> / > > > > > > > > Tony Fletcher > > > > Technical Advisor > > Choreology Ltd. > > 68, Lombard Street, London EC3V 9L J UK > > > > Phone: > > > > > > > > +44 (0) 1473 729537 > > > > Mobile: > > > > > > > > +44 (0) 7801 948219/ / > > > > Fax: > > > > > > > > +44 (0) 870 7390077 > > > > Web: > > > > > > > > /www.choreology.com <http://www.choreology.com/> / > > > > CohesionsT > > > > Business transaction management software for application coordination > > > > Work: tony.fletcher@choreology.com > > > > Home: amfletcher@iee.org <mailto:amfletcher@iee.org> > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -- > > > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster > > of the OASIS TC), go to > > http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsbpel/members/leave_work > > group.php. > To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster of the OASIS TC), go to http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsbpel/members/leave_workgroup. php.
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