Thanks Mark, it's always nice to know that when I want to feel abused you're
there to help. Take care. Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Baker" <mbaker@markbaker.ca>
To: "Dave Winer" <dave@userland.com>
Cc: <fork@kragen.dnaco.net>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 11:11 PM
Subject: Re: 404 errors in SOAP
> Dave,
>
> > Some new bits.
> >
> > I finally got to the bottom of the controversy over WSDLs and SOAP 1.1.
> >
> > SOAP w/o an IDL is 404 Not Found all over again.
>
> I don't think so, no. At least not under the covers. Perhaps
superficially.
>
> > So you call a procedure and it's not there or its interface changed and
your
> > script fails.
>
> That's certainly the case for RPC. But I believe the HTTP/URI equivalent
> is 501 (and sometimes 405), not 404. 501 is "not implemented". It's what
I
> get if I do a "FOOBAR /resource.html". It means that my web server
doesn't
> know what the "FOOBAR" method means, the same as if I did an RPC
"foobar()"
> to a program that didn't have a foobar method. That's very different than
> 404 which means that the server knows what you're asking it to do, but
that
> it doesn't know about the "thing" you want to do it to.
>
> It's another example of how the HTTP contract is stronger than a
> generic "RPC" contract, because HTTP already has the methods
> defined, where "just RPC" doesn't (until you define them, and get
> everybody else to agree). This can't be negotiated at runtime
> because no negotiation semantics are defined for any RPC protocol
> that I know about. Some RPC folk like to claim that dynamic invocation
> mechanisms solve this problem. They don't. All they do is allow those
> in denial to pretend that the problem would be different if only the error
> occured at runtime rather than compile time.
>
> > What does an IDL do to prevent such an outage, or to help you debug an
> > outage that a script error wouldn't?
>
> Nothing. Yet another reason why HTTP is better than RPC.
>
> > Of course in this debate I'm taking the side of linkrot. It's our
friend,
> > it's what makes this stuff implementable, and keeps the gorillas from
> > swamping and crushing The Little Folk.
>
> Linkrot, good.
>
> MB
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 27 2001 - 23:13:44 PDT