RE: xAP and XML

[Johan Helsingius]

At 21:26 18/03/2004 +0000, Edward Pearson wrote:
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite"
cite><font face="arial" size="2"
color="#0000FF">No
sure I follow the logic here. If the wire protocol was different then
low-end devices wouldn't be able to deal with the messages so you'd loose
compatibility. If you need communication between powerful hosts then you
don't need to make the compromises that xAP does to deal with low-end
devices. If you remove these compromises and move to xml then you have
webservices. Or worse, reinvented a poor relation to webservices. Bur xAP
messages delivered in SOAP wrappers - now that might be useful (eg,
across the internet) and very easy with .Net or Java now they have all
the tools to do this built-in. But I can't see the point of XML xAP on
the wire unless it was at the metadata level, say, a home control
application downloading the latest version of a manufacturers device xAP
schema to match its just updated
firmware...</font><font
face="arial"></font></blockquote>
Well, I was actually going in the direction of xAP-over-webservices. And
you wouldn't
loose compatibility as long as you also support the "plain"
wire format, just as
we now have different versions for xAP-over-serial, xAP-over-ethernet
etc.
This would be for communication between hosts running complex
applications,
as SOAP just for dimming the garden lights is a bit overkill.
The metadata should definitely be available in XML.
<x>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</x>Julf