Starting today, I start writing that document. It might not be in best english but we need something written down ASAP. I will make sure, as best as I can, to set the stage, contain the scope and include use-cases and add many examples. It would be great to add some architectural overview and semantics clarification... I hope that many people can contribute (if only by reviewing and providing feedback). Writers are also welcome. I will start with an outline that I will pass to a few people and then publish what we have for a general review... If you are interested, please let me know.
Pat. > From: John Mettraux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: <[email protected]> > Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 13:08:41 +0900 > To: <[email protected]> > Subject: [openwferu-dev] Re: restful authentication (and authorization maybe) > > > Hi Matt, > > On Jan 8, 2008 3:17 AM, Matt Zukowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> Now, aside from the above, I get the feeling that John is not especially >> excited about all this RESTful stuff -- not the way Pat and I are anyway. >> Maybe we haven't made a good case for it, or maybe it's just not really how >> John envisioned OpenWFEru evolving. Either way, it would be tough to try to >> get this off the ground unless John is equally interested in seeing it >> happen. >> Furthermore, I think that it would be a mistake to see this RESTful >> stuff as just an API -- a way of talking to the OWFE engine (and I think >> that's how John sees it). > > If you had some time to write down a few words more about this last > paragraph, it is very interesting. > > >> Coming up with this API demands a fair bit of >> reflection back on the engine itself ( i.e. thinking about it in terms of >> 'resources'), and I personally found this exercise unexpectedly frustrating. >> I'm still not sure if this is because I just don't get John's architectural >> decisions (likely because I'm fairly new to thinking about BPM systems), or >> because there are some dubious semantics hiding in there. In any case, as it >> stands, I think building a meaningful RESTful API around OpenWFEru may be >> difficult unless some conceptual accommodation is made in the underlying >> system (and this is 1) hard, and 2) not fun). > > I was stuck 4 years back. I had to start thinking myself about a > RESTful API for OpenWFEru to start realising what you just explained. > Sorry for being so slow. > > Since those Fluxr discussions, the engine as changed a lot, so some of > the hard / not fun aspects may have vanished. Fluxr may have been > side-tracked but it has certainly influenced OpenWFEru. > > Here is where I ended up (for the record) : > http://jmettraux.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/restful-workflow-engine/ > > >> In regards to the original topic here: John, I agree. A centralized >> authentication/authorization system in the style of restful_authentication >> would be a good, useful thing, and the "standalone project" you're referring >> to may turn out to be RubyCAS -- at least this is how I see the project >> evolving. Support for OpenID is already in the works, as is a RESTful >> version of the CAS protocol. This might make both you and Pat happy, in that >> RubyCAS would be able to authenticate against OpenID, while providing a >> restful_authentication-like interface. (Support for OpenAuth may be a >> problem, but in any case I think we should deal with authentication before >> authorization, since it's possible can get by with just the former). > > Matt, you're great. > > http://code.google.com/p/rubycas-server/ > http://code.google.com/p/rubycas-client/ > > +1 > > > > Best regards, > > -- > John Mettraux -///- http://jmettraux.openwfe.org > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OpenWFEru dev" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/openwferu-dev?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
