[XML-SIG] WSDL library ?

[Rich Salz]

The discussion seems to be heating up a bit, so I'm gonna start to slow 
down in terms of posting. :)  With this note I'll try to summarize some 
things that seem to have been mis-undrestood.

I never said IIOP is crappy; I said HTTP is crappy as a generic 
application protocol.

SOAP RPC Encoding can't transport arbitrary XML, agreed.  But SOAP 
itself can.  That's a good thing.  If I want to transmit legally binding 
information over the Internet, then SOAP's ability to include an XML 
DSIG (as either a header element, or using doc/literal style in the 
body) is way cool; XML-RPC can't do that.

The ability to transmit pointer-using data types (e.g, a balanced tree 
in C/C++), to make changes on the server, and to send the new tree back 
such that the client can reconstruct -- that can be important and 
useful. Sure, Corba proves that you can solve real-world problems 
without it, but that doesn't reduce its utility.  The SOAP id/href 
technique makes that possible.  Server or client-side state has nothing 
to do with it.

It has been more than three years since I left the COM, Corba, DCE 
middleware trenches, and I've gladly forgotten many details, but I don't 
believe it's possible to use Corba IIOP without using the Corba object 
model.  Most of the distributed computing world does not use the Corba 
object model.

As for pointers, etc., I'd like to see the IIOP serialization of a 
doubly-linked list.

I don't believe it is totally fair to complain about the developing 
world of SOAP interop.  The spec is fairly new, most suppliers are on 
their first generation of implementation, etc.  It is particularly not 
fair to compare it to Corba interop, which had was first defined nearly 
five years ago, after nearly five years of deliberately avoiding the 
issue. I am quite pleased by the state of SOAP interop; amazing progress 
has been made in a few months, so much so that at the end of the month 
there will be a two-day interop festival for early WSDL.

In an earlier message I refered to XSD files at 
http://www.zolera.com/schemas/2001/11/ ; unforunately our ISP (good ole 
Win-chapter 11-Star) had problems, which seem to be fixed.  They are 
real, not contrived examples, used in our Tamarin product; a server that 
does XML signatures and encryption.

Pace.
	/r$
-- 
Zolera Systems, http://www.zolera.com
Information Integrity, XML Security