Re: [service-orientated-architecture] Bray Prefers it Web-Style

[Nick Gall]

On 9/25/06, Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>there are very very few systems (and practically nothing I've seen in REST world) or indeed developers and architects who can yet build effective agent systems

>Taking the "power" of this model and trying to apply it to standard computer to computer systems is much more likely to cause failure than not.

Huh? Every piece of software that invokes a mashup API is an example of an "effective agent system" and since most mashup APIs are done in a REST (or at least POX) style, I can't make sense of your statement. Sorry to confuse you with the "agent" talk. We're not talking AI here, just good old software to software interaction via some form of API. The server-side software running at www.chicagocrime.org is acting as a "software agent" that accesses crime data from the Chicago police depart web site and map data from Google and integrating them.

If you are reserving the term "agent" for a piece of software that is nearly as good as a person in its ability to "filter out the crap and handle the vague", then you are using it in a much more restricted way than TBL or the W3C.

I agree with you that the WWW has been successful due to the ability to "filter out the crap and handle the vague". In fact, TBL thought it so important a design principle that he gave it a name-- Tolerance: "Be liberal in what you require but conservative in what you do." (TBL may not have known it at the time, but he was simply paraphrasing Postel's Robustness Principle).

But the key insight that has made both the Internet and the Web so successful is that not only do people need to be liberal in trying to understand others and conservative what they expect others to understand (which all too often they are not--especially in threads <grin>), but software does as well. Any given piece of software on the WWW is not anywhere nearly as good as dealing with crap and ambiguity as a person, but if all the "small pieces [of software] loosely joined" can each tolerate a little ambiguity, then the entire Web becomes incredibly robust.

It is just these sorts of architectural principles that made the Internet and Web so successful that are missing from descriptions of SOA. If more people spent time understanding the philosophical principles underlying the Internet and the WWW, rather than assuming it is simply some technical specs, we'd all be a lot better off.

-- Nick

On 9/25/06, Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:

Which I'm pretty much with, the reality is that WWW though has been successful due to people in the system, who can filter out the crap and handle the vague.  Agent systems are a great future direction and things like BDI can certainly work in this sort of world (and most certainly work in an SOA context) but if you have to have Agents to get to the point where your system is using the WWW "architecture" then there are very very few systems (and practically nothing I've seen in REST world) or indeed developers and architects who can yet build effective agent systems.

Agents are cool, and people have done agent systems without HTTP.

My point (badly made) was that the power of WWW was people, and their ability to make a rich environment from a simple technology (HTML and a browser).  Taking the "power" of this model and trying to apply it to standard computer to computer systems is much more likely to cause failure than not.  Agent systems and semantic systems, inference et al are hard problems in anyones book.  WWW works because they have the best Agent/Semantic/Inference engine sitting in front of the browser.

Nice content references BTW.

Steve

On 25/09/06, Nick Gall < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Steve,

All I think Mark is trying to say is that the current goal of those most closely concerned with the architecture of the WWW (certainly the W3C) is for the architecture of the WWW to encompass agent to agent (A2A) interaction just as much as people to people interaction.

Now as to when the notion of A2A use of the WWW entered TBL's head is an interesting matter of debate. We could ask TBL, but we all know that humans are not objective judges of their own memories. Let me offer up just two examples of how far back TBL's thought's transcending the "person is at the end of the line" principle go.

First, one could argue that the following passage in the original 1989 proposal was the seed of A2A design for the WWW:

Data analysis

An intriguing possibility, given a large hypertext database with typed links, is that it allows some degree of automatic analysis. It is possible to search, for example, for anomalies such as undocumented software or divisions which contain no people. It is possible to generate lists of people or devices for other purposes, such as mailing lists of people to be informed of changes. It is also possible to look at the topology of an organisation or a project, and draw conclusions about how it should be managed, and how it could evolve. This is particularly useful when the database becomes very large, and groups of projects, for example, so interwoven as to make it difficult to see the wood for the trees. [emphasis added: automatic = agent]

http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html

Clearly, TBL was thinking beyond the user agent (formal name for browser) by 1995. Here is a slide in which he questions some "postconceptions" (inappropriately constraining beliefs) about the WWW:

Postconceptions

• URLs are filenames
• Links must be stored in HTML files
• HTML is an alternative to SGML
• Clients are browsers
• You have learn HTML
• HTML is too simple

http://www.w3.org/Talks/9512-6.001/slide14.htm

A couple slides later, TBL makes clear his A2A aspirations for the WWW:

The future

Vortexes:

• Standard API for agents
• IPR and metadata mechanisms

The revolution:

• OOP with Global inheritance
• Global proof: the "Oh, yeah?" button
• Serious agents.

and the time constant shrinks again...

http://www.w3.org/Talks/9512-6.001/slide16.htm

So, while we can debate WHEN the assertion that " one of the principles of WWW is that a person is at the end of the line" became clearly FALSE (from the beginning or sometime later). It is clearly false today. Just ask TBL or anyone at the W3C. At best, one can say that a design principle of the WWW is that the architecture and artifacts of the WWW be as easy as possible for both people and machines to "process".

-- Nick

On 9/25/06, Steve Jones < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

On 24/09/06, Jan Algermissen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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> On Sep 24, 2006, at 7:15 PM, Steve Jones wrote:
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> > I did say that HTTP wasn't person to person, clearly WS-* has been
> > doing computer to computer for several years now using HTTP. My point
> > was over the statement that WWW wasn't person to person.
> >
> And what is in your understanding the difference between WWW and
> globally deployed HTTP?

HTTP is the technical mechanism and protocol. WWW is an approach that
takes advantage of HTTP _and_ HTML to present information to, and
allow interaction from, people.

WWW is just one thing that takes advantage of HTTP.

> Jan
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> > > All of the www.* sites are aimed at humans. Where is the WWW
> > principle of HTML to a Browser used for computer to computer?
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> > > On 22/09/06, Mark Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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> > > > On 9/21/06, Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:> [SJ]
> > > > > And one of the principles of WWW is that a person is at the
> > end of the
> > > > > line,
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> > > > That's incorrect.
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> > > > Mark.
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--
Nick Gall
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--
Nick Gall
Phone: +1.781.608.5871
AOL IM: Nicholas Gall
Yahoo IM: nick_gall_1117
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