Patrick, Ok, as I said in another reply, I apologize if I misunderstood the question. I thought the question was for a simple definition of SOA.
I do have more details behind this "headline summary" if you will allow me to call it that, and I will try to find some time this week to type them up for this list. The two books I mention are also a good source of further detail, and both are vendor neutral. Mine and Greg's focuses on how to map SOA concepts to Web services, while the Enterprise SOA book focuses on best practices and lessons learned, primarily from CORBA examples based on IONA's Orbix product line. Ultimately we have a formal definition in terms of significant deployments, from which these definitions, both basic and detailed, are derived. One point that will always give us trouble compared to the specs for HTTP, SOAP etc. is that SOA is not a technology like those but a style of design, or approach to IT that is technology independent. So you can't nail it down the way you can nail down something like J2EE using a set of API and protocol specs. So you may be frustrated if you are thinking of SOA in that context. More later. Thanks, Eric --- "Logan, Patrick D" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "I meant formal in the sense that it is as simple > and > precise a definition as possible. As opposed to an > informal style of definition which is a bit more > impressionistic, you know, like an SOA is a kind of > an > architecture that does, you know, something like > define things like services and stuff.... ;-) > > Perhaps you are looking for formality in a different > kind of notation than English?" > > I am truly struggling with the SOA field generally, > in how to come to > terms with it. Specifically in my response to your > message, I don't see > the difference between what you are calling "formal" > and "precise" and > what you are calling "impressionistic". I just don't > see much of a > difference at this point. > > I think a formal notation other than English would > be great, but even > SMTP, HTTP, etc. are defined in English and yet are > more formal than > those I have seen for SOA. > > A formal or even semi-formal definition that would > help me would be one > that is clear to me how to reason with. I don't see > how to reason with > your definition, at least to any significant degree. > Since our exchange > itself is informal, these opinions are of course > based on perception. > You may be able to reason more with your definition > than I can. > > Perhaps you could elaborate on your definition with > an illustration of > how to use it to determine whether some specific > case is good or bad, in > or out, or something. What are the range of > decisions I can make with > this definition? > > -Patrick > > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com 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/
