Via Jef Newsom, Clemens Vasters describes his current, very cool project. He writes;
In fact, the entire server will likely not put a single plain-text, XML 1.0 encoded SOAP envelope onto the wire, but will be rather REST-ish and POX-ish.
Who knew?! 8-)
Compare and contrast;
His taste in design was by and large extraordinary. And yet he did it in a way that you were only barely conscious that he was nudging you toward better design.
Dave reminds us that Jon Postel died seven years ago today. Wow, seven. Update; the anniversary of his death was the 16th.
I attended Jon’s last IETF meeting, in Chicago, and I’ll never forget the plenary discussion where the hot topic was Jon’s position as Director of IANA (this was back when it mattered – when it played the role currently played by ICANN) and the importance of that position. During the back-and-forth, somebody pointed out that although everybody trusts Jon, the position itself is arguably too powerful, and would we trust everybody who ever held that position.
The reason I’ll never forget the meeting is because of something eerily prescient Vint Cerf (or at least I think it was him) said; “God forbid something to happen should Jon”. Of course, Vint, as a good friend of Jon, knew that he’d been gravely ill in the past, but still. A few weeks later, whammo.
FWIW, I became a big fan of Postel over the approximately two years prior, as I spent a lot time studying his (IMO) greatest gift to the world, the RFC series. In fact, Rohit penned a wonderful tribute to him grounded in the series, including a “Greatest Hits” list; a must read.
Two back-to-back messages received on a popular mailing list;
Hi Everyone, I am new and haven’t done soaps yet. Will be doing first cp this weekend. My question is this can I use those rubbermaid plastic containers they sell everywhere for cp soaps and do I have to line it with something if I do use it? Also I bought some cultured buttermilk blend in the baking section of food store. Can I use this along with or make own recipe. Also getting lard is very hard here in Baltimore as they don’t seem to have it anymore. I don’t want to use talon but would prefer lard. Does anyone know where I could get it without going to a pig farm. thanks, Karen in BMore
Followed three minutes later by this;
Hi, I am sorry that this maybe a group that doesn’t make soaps. If it is I am sorry because my questions were in reference to making soaps. Thanks anyway. Karen in BMore
The mailing list? You guessed it, soapbuilders. 8-)
A good comment from Chui Tey over in Steve’s comments.
Interfaces defining many kinds of messages imposes unncessary [sic] coupling, when what is required is for documents to be thrown over the other side of the wall, leaving the other party to decide what order to parse and process the document.
So in the spirit of the Zero/One/Infinity rule, what is he saying? Is it a) services should not have interfaces, b) services should share a common interface, or c) services should have whatever interface they want?