Web service standards question

[Andre Schaaff]

Quoting Martin Hill <mch at roe.ac.uk>:

> > 
> > OK, and then if SOAP by itself does not provide a table model, but we
> in 
> > the VO community have one (implicitely through VOTable) or more 
> > (excplicitly inside of Toptable, SAVOT or the GAVO table system), why
> 
> > don't we go ahead and augment the SOAP standard? Id' really like to 
> > download a WSDL and submit it to myWSDL2Java compiler, and start using
> 
> > the client.
> 
> ...you can also 'import' the VOTable schema into your WSDL definition
> (The 
> SkyNode WSDL is, I think, an example), and then your WSDL2Java generator
> will 
> build you a complete VOTable object model too. This is:
> 
> Good) because your WSDL 'contract' defines that you expect the parameter
> to be a 
> VOTable, not just a string.
> 
> Iffy) because you get an object model built for you by the generator,
> but 
> sometimes this needs some hand-tweaking
> 
> Iffy) because you may not want the VOTable to be marshalled/unmarshalled
> into an 
> object model.  For example, if your service is going to transform it
> using XSLT, 
> there is a big Waste of Power in converting it to an object model and
> back 
> again, especially if it's a Really Big Huge table.

In answer to the previous interesting mails of today morning, i think that we
need to define in the coming months something like a VO Web Service Basic
profile (will be discussed friday). We are all developping WS and we need to
follow a few basic rules (what is mandatory, optional, optional but recommanded,
...)
VObs Support Interfaces begins to indicate that heartbeat is mandatory,
log-harvesting is optional, ....
We must go further in this way (object or VOTable for tabular data, etc.)
This implies also to provide tools to check the compliance to VO WS recommandations.


André


> 
> 
> -- 
> Martin Hill
> www.mchill.net
> +44 7901 55 24 66
> 
>