Sunday, November 02, 2003

SOAP Header Blocks Best Practices. My first sighting of a best practices for SOAP Header Blocks. It won't be my last I'm sure. 6:20:31 AM

The Origin (Coining) of the Term "Middleware" I spent some of my own hard earned cash to scratch an itch I've had for a long time about the origin of the term "Middleware" as well as to test Google Answers. I am delighted with the results: The Oxford English Dictionary Online (available through personal or institutional subscription) provides, as its first two quotations: "1970 A. CHANDOR et al. Dict. Computers 254 Middleware, computer manufacturer's software which has been tailored to the particular needs of an installation." "1972 Accountant 27 Apr. 537/2 A comparatively new term 'middleware' was introduced because, as some systems had become 'uniquely complex', standard operating systems required enhancement or modification; the programs that effected this were called 'middleware' because they came between the operating system and the application programs." "middleware" OED Online [Oxford University Press] available by subscription at http://dictionary.oed.com The first citation is to "A Dictionary of Computers", a/k/a "The Penguin Dictionary of Computers", edited by Anthony Chandor et al. "The Penguin Dictionary of Computers (Penguin Reference Books)" Amazon.co.uk http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/014051127X/qid=1067540389/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_0_2/026-8392499-8130832 "Displaying books where Author is Chandor, Anthony, Title is A Dictionary of Computers" BookFinder.com http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&;st=sl&qi=OirDDTdbyRailuduqXthXDoEZVg_1594598467_2:1:3 The second reference appears to be to the London periodical "The Accountant"., which you can find by searching major library catalogs, especially in the UK, for the title "accountant". What I like about the definitions that Google Answers came up with is that they predate the "network-centric" definitions of Middleware. I'd always assumed that Middleware was coined in the early days of Client/Server to refer to the network-oriented software that linked client and server. But in fact, the Accountant citation clearly defines Middleware as any software between an application and an OS--way before C/S and even before computer networks were prominent. The Dictionary citation emphasizes customization ("tailored") of generic software ("manufacturer's software") to "particular needs". What this suggests to me is that Middleware is software that mediates software, i.e., mediates between a software resource (network) or set of resources (OS) and a software application. This supports my aphorism: "Metadata is data about data; Middleware is software about software." 6:00:55 AM

Summary of changes from WSDL 1.1 to WSDL 1.2. From Jeff Schlimmer, one of the WSDL editors. Port Type got renamed Interface! I'd better go back and read WSDL 1.2 much more carefully. 5:24:39 AM

Yet More SOAP Standards. Man, is it hard to keep up with the evolution of Web services standards. I love it! It has the feel the rush of RFC's in the early days of the Internet. In the aftermath of the PDC (as aggregated through PDC Bloggers) I picked up on Martin Gudge's blog, where he mentions the death of DIME (and other SOAP attachment stds) and the birth of PASWA/MTOM. These latter two standards make even clearer that SOAP is about interoperability of typed, reliable, transacted, secure <<Infosets>>. I also picked up on Jeff Schlimmer's blog. Jeff been an editor on several of the core WS-* standards. 5:05:46 AM

XAML and XUL, Please Talk. Benjamin Voigt has an interesting post with a set of links discussing XAML and SVG/CSS as well as XAML and XUL. Hopefully, with sufficient pressure from the developer community, by Longhorn, XAML becomes more standard not less. 4:22:24 AM