WS-Confusion

"I was reading Blogfarb's Goldblog "Writing specs just for the spec of it?" http://radio.weblogs.com/0121172/2003/03/10.html which has a link to an infoworld article http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/03/05/HNmanyspecs_1.html quoting Don Box.  He is critical of the number of specs being written and the reasons.  I see his name on the ws-xyz specs.   I am confused."
[Tom Richards]

The key part of the article is this:

"The software industry has become so fixated on new specifications that it has lost sight of the fundamental goal: using XML to link software applications together. While some new specs that have been proposed are important and useful, others are too complex and still others will probably never be used, including some from Microsoft, he said."

I think the point is this: we do need many of the core specs very badly, but we need two other things just as badly as those core specs, and a lot more badly than the rest:

1) Tools that hide the details of the specs: The specs are behind the scenes, you shouldn't have to know them unless you are creating the plumbing (yes, this means you shouldn't have to spend hours and hours pouring over the specs and memorizing every element and attribute). This is the whole idea behind the MS approach to web services. You should see some great stuff from MS to address this with the next version of VS.NET, which is due some time next year. Unless it is very easy to use webservices, most developers aren't going to use them, so this is a significant problem right now.

2) We need developers to write more web services. Most likely, the majority of people will not be in the business of writing, but consuming web services (just like a handful of software companies make components, while thousands of software companies buy and use components). As a result, we need more webservices that are consumable, so that developers will get used to using them and come up with feedback on what the real world problems are that need to be addressed.