Dr Robert Sanderson wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Dec 2004, Adam Dickmeiss wrote:
>
>> Dr Robert Sanderson wrote:
>>
>>> a) Allow SRU via POST, making three possibilities for hardcore server
>>>    developers
>>> Then I think that (a) is the better option, because the people who are
>>> most affected are the people who are most likely to just implement it
>>> anyway rather than abandoning ship.
>
>
>> thank you for responding.. I pretty much agree. It will be more honest
>> to say.
>>  c) SRU it is. GET is mandatory. POST is optional. SRW / SOAP depricated.
>
>
> I don't think that deprecating SRW is a good option.  There's just no
> advantage to doing so, and see below.
Interopability?

>> The important part is that people did not implement SRW servers already,
>> so we're in a stage where SRU GET is the only "safe" option.
>
>
> Well, most of us -have-, they're just much harder to write braindead
> clients for, and for the most part we have been interested in servers not
> clients.
Don't understand. Do you think, is it easer to write braindead clients
for SRW or SRU?

>>>> The consequence is that clients that just works are bound to be SRU
>>>> GET,
>>>> or try to be clever and configure (using a poll like mechaism)..
>>>
>>> Perhaps we should just require SRU GET?
>>
>> Yep. It's the only sensible thing to do. Thinking about it, the SRW
>> protocol has gradually moved away from XML. XCQL gone. SOAP not being
>> supported by some servers (even IIRC it was required).
>
>
> I don't think that's the protocol moving away from XML, or SOAP. It was
> more a design flaw in the 1.0 spec.
> XCQL's initial raison d'etre was to avoid writing CQL parsers, as everyone
> must have access to an XML parser anyway.  If you have an XML parser you
> can generate the same tree from XCQL with it as from CQL with a CQL
> parser.
>
> However the cost of constructing that tree in a client is much much
> greater than constructing the string equivalent.  It shifted the burden
> from the server (which already has the burden of implementation) to the
> client (which doesn't).   The server already had to understand CQL, so it
> just complicated everything to also allow XCQL in the request.

For web browsers using SRU that is true. But it don't think that's true
for servers. Constructing XML is not that hard. But as for transport I
100% agree .. (prefer one language, rather than two).

> However we retained it in the response as it's easy to manipulate with
> XSLT (or other tools) in a client.  There it's useful, it shifts the
> burden of parsing the CQL first to the server, and then to the underlying
> tools used by the client.

Again the focus was on web browsers implementing SRU. They have _driven_
the spec enormously.

>> SRU should be considered _one_ protocol. When explain is returend it
>> should just state "I can handle POST" or "I cannot handle POST" (forgive
>> me if that's already been suggested). This will make it easy for clients
>> to use POST if that is desired, but do GET explain in the _first_ place.
>
>
> This is where I start to really disagree.
I take that you think it's not problematic that clients will have to
poll using the two/three request methods SRU POST, SRU GET, SOAP to
determine the supported transport + explain for a server.

> While there may not be many SRW implementations in use today, that's not
> to say that SOAP is bad, or that there never will be any.  The number of
> publically available, non trivial/non experimental web services in any
> field today is still not very high.  Database access is, IMO, the prime
> candidate for expansion (cf Google, Amazon) and SRW is the single real
> contender in that field.
Google AFAIK web service using one SOAP protocol instance. Not three.
Same thing with Amazon.

SRW/SRU is now moving to three. And yet there is no way to "discover"
the supported transport without polling ..

>> 1. Since POST does not have similar size limitations.. Update or other
>> services will work (better).
>
>
> Well, we do talk about this size limitiation. But has anyone actually hit
> it in practice? Has anyone even demonstrated that current servers fail to
> process queries > 1024 characters?
So are we discussing SRU POST for no gain?

>> We can keep SRW+SOAP . But it's going to die. If we keep it, it will be
>> pure marketing.. I'm certainly going to change "my" clients to use SRU
>> instead of SRW.
>
>
> That's certainly a possibility.  However, the entry into the 'marketplace'
> of a few heavy hitters on the SOAP front and I think that could very very
> easily turn around.
>
> Netcraft hasn't confirmed it yet :)
And, it's safe to say that HTTP GET is more used than HTTP POST which
again is more used than SOAP (per definition) .

I don't see it as the SRW spec to describe all possible routes to
information retrieval.. Just one that works well and serves 99% well ..
and one that allows a client to configure itself when given a URL as a
start.

/ Adam

> Rob
>
>
>       ,'/:.          Dr Robert Sanderson ([log in to unmask])
>     ,'-/::::.        http://www.o-r-g.org/~azaroth/
>   ,'--/::(@)::.      Dept. of Computer Science, Room 805
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