Keith Harrison-Broninski wrote: > I only suggested replacing SOA with DOA as a joke, of course. However, > for those of you who still want something to define, DOA does suggest a > more useful question than "what is a service", a question that as Ron > suggests is aligned towards /what/ rather than /how/: > > *What is a distributed system?* > > A quick Google turned up some very shaky definitions. So here's a > starting point: a system in which storage and/or processing may occur in > more than one place. But is this sufficient or even necessary for > distribution? And what is meant by a "place"?
The most predominate notion for me is the phrase "The network is the computer." Only when you recognize that there might be an opportunity for your software to be used from someplace besides the computer it is running on, and that the API you are using might not be implemented by software that runs "next" to you, does the term service become more commonly uttered than API, module, class or other software-like containers. The totality of the computing environment is no longer local in our minds. Instead, we see that using software somewhere else is actuall an enabler to faster software system creation. With advanced RPC and messaging technologies, the door has opened for more distributed application programming to occur easily. Some people are considering that the biggest enhancements have been things like HTTP and XML. While these are enabling technologies for certain types of applications, the big enhancement, for me, is actually the awareness in the industry that distributed programming actually is an enabler. It just so happens that the largest and most predominate development environments are WS based, and thus enable the use of HTTP and XML. But, that is but a minority of what the whole landscape change is about. Gregg Wonderly ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get Bzzzy! (real tools to help you find a job). Welcome to the Sweet Life. http://us.click.yahoo.com/A77XvD/vlQLAA/TtwFAA/NhFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/service-orientated-architecture/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
