New WS-*specs (or, how you can count on MS to make things difficult for you)

Two new specs have been just released: WS-Transfer (the REST folks will have a field day with this) and WS-Enumeration.

Let me start with the second one first…

For the last few days I’ve been working on demonstrating how to implement “streaming” of messages in Web Services. I completed the WSE code for it and I was drafting a note with my experiences. Now there seems to be a protocol for it, which makes the work obsolete but at least relevant, so I plan to publish the notes anyway.

Now to WS-Transfer

Why MS? Why? Why explicit modelling of resources in this way? Why the focus away from services? We are not talking about service-orientation anymore but about resource-orientation. WS-Addressing is no longer used as a reference to a service but, rather, as a reference to a resource, to an object. This would encourage people to think in terms of objects and not in terms of services. I need to study this specification more carefully but first impressions are not good.

I wonder whether this is another step from the companies to accommodate the Grid’s fascination with WS-RF. Hmmm.