Cover Pages: XML Daily Newslink: Wednesday, 27 June 2007

A Cover Pages Publication http://xml.coverpages.org/
Provided by OASIS and Sponsor Members
Edited by Robin Cover

This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by:
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Headlines

W3C Recommendation: Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0
WSDL 2.0 Recommendation!
BEA Ready To Lock Down Workshop 10.1 Code
AMQP: Toward a Commodity Enterprise Middleware
Apply Profile Links to Microformats
Public Review: Customer Information Quality Specifications Version 3.0
Cool Things You Can Do With XPath in XForms

W3C Recommendation: Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0
Roberto Chinnici, Jean-Jacques Moreau (et al., eds), W3C Technical Report

W3C announced finalization of "a Web services description language with full support of the primary protocol for the Web, HTTP, and the most frequently implemented Web services protocol, SOAP. Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 2.0 incorporates both the improvements for WSDL 1.1 found in the WS-I Basic Profile, and builds in inheritance, import functions, improved description of faults and errors, and full HTTP and SOAP support. Rigorous testing and interop sessions, including week-long programming marathons by the Web Services Description Working Group itself, have produced a solid interoperable standard that delivers on the goals of the initial WSDL 1.1 version, and also meets the needs of Web applications developers today. Wide interest in SOAP 1.1 and WSDL 1.1 marked the beginning of Web Services pursuits. The hope of interoperability in the initial, non-standardized versions was not immediately fulfilled in spite of the large number of developers who moved to that model for applications development. WS-I, for example, formed to create profiles based on non-standard versions of the popular Web Services technologies. Those who have built implementations that conform to the WS-I Basic Profile may use a converter to WSDL 2.0, thus easing the transition to the new standard and enabling use of new features. Further, WSDL 2.0 support is built into critical emerging Web services standards, including Semantic Annotations for WSDL (SAWSDL) and WS-Policy 1.5, both anticipated in September 2007. With the increased popularity of REST-model as well as SOAP over HTTP, the Working Group recognized the clear need for complete HTTP support in Web application descriptions. As a result, WSDL 2.0 has complete HTTP and SOAP support, making it useful for both simple Web applications and Web Services applications that require additional functionality."

See also: the announcement

WSDL 2.0 Recommendation!
Jonathan Marsh, 'Design by Committee' Blog

"Today, almost 6 years after I became involved, WSDL 2.0 became a W3C Recommendation. The Web Services Description Working Group of which I'm a co-chair ends shortly too, with it's charter running out this week and the Working Group disbanding thereafter. Seems like the end of an era. But it's really just a new beginning. IBM's testimonial indicates support in a new version of the IBM CICS Transaction Server being released this week. Support in our own WSO2 Web Services Application Server appears imminent, with a 2.0 version due out in a few weeks. My own pet project the WSO2 Mashup Server makes significant use of WSDL 2.0; we're trying to do our first alpha release in the next week or two as well. A number of helpful tools are appearing, like the W3C WSDL 1.1 to WSDL 2.0 converter, a similar converter at WSO2.org, and my own annotated stylesheets. I was especially gratified to see a number of companies indicating that they will support WDSL 2.0 in their products and operations, and even willing to go on the record. From the press release: 'Many companies have stated that they expect to support WSDL 2.0 in upcoming product releases, including Adobe Systems Inc.; CA; IBM; Sun Microsystems, Inc; webMethods; and WSO2...' I'm confident that developers, given the opportunity to choose WSDL 2.0 over WSDL 1.1, will be happy to make the upgrade, and will be favor vendors make that option available. Congratulations to all the WG members for the long and hard work involved in getting us there. Recs and WG endings can seem rather anticlimactic, but don't forget to raise a glass tonight wherever you are to a job well done!"

BEA Ready To Lock Down Workshop 10.1 Code
Sumner Lemon, InfoWorld

BEA's Java development tool, set for release next month, combines Workshop for WebLogic with Workshop Studio. BEA Systems will lock down the code for Workshop 10.1 this Friday in preparation for the Java development tool's release next month. Announced in May, Workshop 10.1 aims to give developers a tool to develop Java applications using both commercial and open-source frameworks. The new tool combines Workshop for WebLogic with Workshop Studio, formerly called Nitrox, an Eclipse-based tool BEA acquired through its purchase of middleware company M7 in 2005. 'It used to be that we literally had two separate code bases. The Studio stuff was different from the main Workshop line,' Roth said. Bringing these tools together in a 'blended' product will allow developers to more easily mix and match commercial and open-source frameworks when building their applications, he said. Workshop 10.1 is one of several products that BEA will ship in July. AquaLogic Pages, AquaLogic Ensemble, and AquaLogic Pathways, a set of tools to create collaborative applications with features such as tagging, wikis, and RSS feeds, are set to ship this month. BEA's WebLogic Server Virtual Edition, a tool that allows Java applications to run on a virtualization server without an operating system, is also scheduled to ship this month.

AMQP: Toward a Commodity Enterprise Middleware
John O'Hara, ACM Queue

"Can AMQP enable a new era in messaging middleware? This article sets out the motivations, capabilities, and credentials of AMQP and offers it as a practical solution for a standards-based messaging infrastructure. AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol) was born out of my own experience and frustrations in developing front- and back-office processing systems at investment banks. AMQP had its first mission-critical deployment to production in mid-2006. That project paid for itself with its first deployment, serves 2,000 users, and processes 300 million messages per day. AMQP is a binary wire protocol and well-defined set of behaviors for transmitting application messages between systems using a combination of store-and-forward, publish-and-subscribe, and other techniques. I use the term application messages to distinguish AMQP from instant messaging or other forms of end-user messaging. AMQP addresses the scenario where there is likely to be some economic impact if a message is lost, does not arrive in a timely manner, or is improperly processed. The protocol is designed to be usable from different programming environments, operating systems, and hardware devices, as well as making high-performance implementations possible on various network transports including TCP, SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol), and InfiniBand. Banks are looking for high-performance service buses from which to hang their system architectures. Web services are not fitting the bill because they are too compute-and bandwidth-intensive per unit of work. The growth of automated trading is also igniting interest in improving middleware. Banks are still pushing the envelope with market data events exceeding 500,000 per second at source. Pervasive networking standards such as Ethernet, the Internet Protocol, e-mail, and the Web share some traits. They are all royalty-free and unencumbered by patents, they are all publicly specified, and they all shipped with a useful early implementation for free. The combination of freedom and usefulness drives their adoption when predicated on fitness for purpose. To succeed, AMQP needed to adopt these same characteristics... AMQP's transport is a binary protocol using network byte ordering; the protocol specification itself, however, is written in XML so implementers can code-generate large portions of their implementations; this makes it easier for vendors to support the technology. Use of AMQP in SOA is just beginning, and you don't need anything other than AMQP to do it. I am already involved in a project to migrate an existing mission-critical EMB from a proprietary middleware to AMQP, so we can cost-effectively scale the bus to many more systems."

Apply Profile Links to Microformats
Uche Ogbuji, IBM developerWorks

Microformats are a popular way to incorporate structured data into regular Web pages. Some aspects of microformats are useful, and some are but very poor substitutes for XML or even JSON. Regardless, once you have decided to use microformats for a particular purpose it is important not to just shovel the microformats willy-nilly into content, but to declare their presence. The microformats community sets a quiet mandate for such declarations, but they are unfortunately used too rarely. This article explains how how formal profile declarations in your documents can improve the value of your microformats. A microformat is a lightweight sub-format grafted onto a host language such as HTML, XHTML or Atom. The host language probably has a formal schema, but most microformats prefer informal descriptions in Wiki pages. There has been some effort to create a super-simple description format based on a subset of XHTML. These are called XHTML Meta Data Profiles (XMDP). XMDP is a simple XHTML-based format for defining HTML meta data profiles easy to read and write by both humans and machines. The markup is a subset of XHTML. All the microformats blessed by microformats.org have an XMDP profile, placed at a prominent location. XMDP profiles are a way to explain and share the conventions of a microformat. References to an XMDP profile on the Web is also supposed to provide some declaration of the use of a microformat. Users are required to use such links in instance documents. For XHTML, host language profile references are usually placed as an attribute of the head element. With profile links a microformats processor can be smart enough to only parse declared profiles, which reduces some of the potential for clashes and confusion. The Semantic Web community wants to take advantage of formal profiles for microformats by using them as a hook to extract structured metadata from instance documents. The sharp end of this effort is Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages (GRDDL), a way to extract RDF from (generally) XML using a transform technology, typically XSLT. A GRDDL processor would check a document for a special sort of profile that provides a link to a transform for RDF extraction. Plain Microformats have more market buzz than GRDDL, so it might make sense to stick to the microformats-blessed profile links, and for GRDDL processors to be smart enough to automatically understand the translation. All this does you no good if you don't even use the basic profile links, and as microformats grow into more territory you will almost certainly have cause to be thankful for adding profile links in target documents.

See also: XHTML Meta Data Profiles

Public Review: Customer Information Quality Specifications Version 3.0
Staff, OASIS Announcement

OASIS announced that the CIQ Specifications v3.0 have now been released for second round of 60-day public review. CIQ Version 3.0 defines Name (xNL), Address (xAL), Name and Address (xNAL), and Party Information (xPIL) specifications. In addition to the specification and schemas, several additional documents are included: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ); General Introduction and Overview; Package Overview; Release Notes; Technical Overview. CIQ supports party data (names, address and party centric information) ir-respective of countries, cultures, races and geographical locations. Flat XML data models are used as opposed to complex hierarchical XML data models with supporting UML models. It provides the ability for user to define semantics to the data to meet their requirements without modifying the data model and thereby, ensuring the represented data conforms to the CIQ XML schema specifications. In CIQ one may use any code lists without modifying the CIQ XML schema specifications using the upcoming open industry standard for Code List namely the OASIS Code List (Genericode) from OASIS Code List TC and the UBL Methodology for Code List Value and Validation. CIQ supports the ability to define business rules to constraint the CIQ XML Schema specifications without modifying the CIQ XML schema specifications using industry standard approach and industry standards. This feature enables users to restrict the CIQ data models to their specific needs and at the same time ensuring that the represented data conforms to the CIQ data models. A country can apply this feature to constrain the CIQ Address data model to its specific country address data model without modifying the CIQ Address model. One may use GeoRSS/GML from the Open Geospatial Consortium to represent location coordinates.

See also: the CIQ FAQ document

Cool Things You Can Do With XPath in XForms
Nicholas Chase, IBM developerWorks

If you've done any work in XML, you're probably familiar with XPath, the expression language that enables you to select portions of an XML document. If you've worked with XForms, you're definitely familiar with it; you can't build an XForms form without it! But XPath enables you to do much more than just select a node for display on the page. This article shows you how XPath and XForms interact to enable you to create functionality you may not have considered, such as displaying a list of unique values in one easy step, or using XPath in conjunction with interface elements such as radio buttons or drop-down lists to control the data displayed, as opposed to just the data submitted. XForms is based heavily on what you can do with XPath. The article explains how to: (1) Automatically populate a node using the results of an XPath function; (2) Select data in one location based on user choices in another location; (3) Display only unique items from a list; (4) Filter results based on multiple criteria; (5) Provide a wild-card value for an XPath expression.

See also: XML and Forms


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