mnot’s Web log

Design depends largely on constraints.” — Charles Eames

Tuesday, April 27 2004

How do we use SOAP Headers?

Way back when in the XML Protocol Working Group, one of the concerns that came up was the processing model for SOAP headers. In particular, while SOAP 1.2 does a...

( 3 comments )

Using WebDAV as a Description Format for REST

In the past, I’ve talked about reusing WSDL as a format for describing Web resources, as well as coming up with a bespoke format. One path that I’ve overlooked so...

( 6 comments )

Understanding Arnie

I think I'm starting to sympathise with Our Great Governor in California; the state senate has passed a bill banning the production or sale of foie gras. That's right, when...

( 1 comment )

Monday, April 26 2004

Typography Out of the Box

Don Box: As for OpenOffice’s lame typography support, have you tried Microsoft Office 2003. I still have ~$200 left of quota over at the company store… Hmm. In OSX, It’s...

Saturday, April 24 2004

Madonna Dead

This is why heuristics aren't such a hot idea. UPDATE: For those wondering what this is about, the original version of this article had a picture of Madonna, the actor/singer/etc.,...

Tuesday, April 20 2004

Sean’s Words of Wisdom

Sean McGrath always has carefully considered positions, and he hits it out of the ballpark with this one. A few thoughts; Eventually though, to fully realise RESTian SOA we need...

( 1 comment )

Monday, April 19 2004

Asynchrony: There Is No Spoon

One of the things that people find compelling about Web services is its promise of asynchrony. “HTTP is only request/response, and therefore synchronous; it’s terrible for long-lived business processes, where...

( 1 comment )

Friday, April 16 2004

Describing Generative Identifiers in WSDL

To use WSDL to describe RESTful interactions, you need some way of accommodating generative resource identifiers. In a nutshell, this means some part of the URI is dynamic. For example,...

Thursday, April 15 2004

Five Favourite Protocol Design Papers

Lots of papers come and go over the years; take a look at any tech conference, online bibliographies (even subject-specific ones; Webbib is a favourite), and you’ll be inundated. However,...

( 4 comments )

Wednesday, April 14 2004

A(nother) Description Format for REST

I’ve talked before about describing RESTful Web resources, going as far as prototyping a new format. That work was predicated on the assumption that WSDL wasn’t adequate. However, Dave Orchard...

( 5 comments )

Tuesday, April 13 2004

More Software that Everybody Should Download

Spike is a networked clipboard that allows you to easily share text, pictures and other interesting things with others near and far. The nice part is that a) it uses...

GMail

People of Fremont, you might want to consider your voting choices a little more carefully. Liz Figueroa (your senator) has decided that Google’s GMail is “like having a massive billboard...

( 2 comments )

Monday, April 12 2004

Leading from Afar, or Out of Touch?

From the Washington Post: This is Bush’s 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking...

( 4 comments )

Friday, April 9 2004

Elegance in Integration

Elegance in integration is multiplicity — solving one problem in ways that aid another. Elegance is optimization. Elegance is assembly — an apparatus readily put together and taken apart. Elegance...

xml:id is Coming

This is a good idea for so many reasons. The media type registration will have to be changed to take advantage of it, but I believe that RFC3023 is under...

Thursday, April 1 2004

The Market for AdWords

Google’s AdWords program allows advertisers to target their dollars at specific words; for example, I can say that I want to buy advertising on search results when the terms are...

( 1 comment )