[occi-wg] Votes: XML vs. JSON vs. TXT

[Alexander Papaspyrou]

Actually, while following the discussion for a while now, I feel that  
we have a strawman discussion here.

In general, I agree to the general consensus that data representation  
should be simple. Really simple. Nothing is more frustrating than  
having to implement, maintain, and sell a complex beast to people  
outside (tm).

However, we should remember to not mix up model and rendering.

The question whether to use RESTful services with CSV, WS-Mayhem, or  
JSON over avian carriers is a question of _rendering_. I second the  
fact that this is an important issue to decide upon at some point. But  
unless we have agreed on the _model_, we haven't reached this point  
IMHO.

The canonical way to cope with this issue (which, by the way, has  
proved right many times in the past) in many WGs within OGF is to  
separate this step not only in design, but also in specification: have  
an abstract "modeling" part in the spec which clearly defines the  
semantics the data, and one or more normative renderings for the  
abstract model.

Plus, if we manage to agree on a certain data representation until the  
final draft, we still can take this single consensus and promote it as  
the _only_ normative rendering.

Cheers,
Alexander

Am 07.05.2009 um 18:56 schrieb Tim Bray:

> On May 7, 2009, at 1:12 AM, Marc-Elian Begin wrote:
>
>> I'm currently using restlet to build RESTFul web-services (very nice
>> by
>> the way) in Java.  In such a framework, generating the requested
>> format
>> based on the requests's 'Content-Type' attribute is trivial (as long
>> as
>> the transformation is available).  This means that my WS can talk
>> (x)html when the user's a human (me), or XML or JSON or plain/text.
>>
>> So for me multi-format is mandatory...
>
> Could you expand on you you get from "Generating multiple formats is
> easy for me based on my implementation tools" to "multi-format is
> mandatory"?
>
> The intervening steps in the argument are not self-evident.  -T
>
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-- 
Alexander Papaspyrou
alexander.papaspyrou at tu-dortmund.de

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