On May 20, 2006, at 8:03 AM, Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
>
> OK so where is application/purchase-order+xml standardized? How am I
> supposed to understand the implication of that w.r.t. the data that's
> coming down the pipe?
>

It does not have to be standardized (although if an available 
standard does what you need, so much the better).  The MIME type (or 
schema) only has to be shared knowledge between service and client - 
which leads to the semantics being hard-coded into the client 
software to some extend.

A uniform API does not solve the problem that communicating parties 
need to share some semantics to understand each other. The advantage 
of a uniform API is that the shared semantics are being moved from 
the API level to the message level and that integration is far easier 
to achieve at the message level than at the API level (e.g. through 
stylesheet conversions[1]) The same holds for evolution.

In addition, having all shared semantics at the schema level makes it 
possible to create simple, very usable sets of semantics (schemas) 
that encourage reuse and limit the schema/API explosion (e.g. see 
RSS's et al. success story). This is also especially useful in a 
decentralized environment, where you cannot just bring all the 
developers to the table and nail down an API once and forever but 
where a small group has to specify something  that can then be handed 
to other departments or customers.

Jan





> Sanjiva.
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