[oslc-core] OSLC Core WG March 4, 2010 meeting minutes posted

[Andrew J Berner]

Arthur's edits of the minutes nicely elaborates on the original comment
that the principles of REST say URL's represent nouns not verbs, and the
HTTP method used is the verb.  Has the core team then addressed how OSLC
specs should address what would be non-CRUD elements of an api?   The
"classic" example I've seen is a clever way out of this that we may not
want to always duplicate:  If the REST resources are bank accounts, how do
you transfer funds from one account to the other?  The answer is have an
"account transfer" resource, and an account has a list of account
transfers, so you can POST a new transfer to that list, thus making "a
funds transfer" instead of "transferring funds".  (There's a great joke
from Alan Perlis whose punch line is "Any English word can be verbed"...I
guess this is the converse of :  Can every verb be nouned?)

But we're used to having a record of a transfer as a "thing".  Not always
the case with actions a service can perform on a resource.  Here's a couple
of examples:

A modeling tool has a Model resource...you can GET it and you can PUT
changes to it.  But the tool allows you to "sketch" so you can PUT changes
that do not follow all the rules of the type of model (you can have Java
classes multiply inherit, maybe).  The tool can validate the model, and
give you back a list of errors.   In a 3GL api, we would have a method
"ValidationErrorList Model::validate()" method.   How would an OSLC
modeling service provide that capability?

A project management tool has a WorkBreakdownStructure resource, with
tasks, durations, dependencies, constraints, and resourceAssignments (which
has a URL to a Resource resource---inherently a fun spec to have
conversations about).  The project management tool has various resource
leveling algorithms.   The 3GL call would be LevelingErrors WBS.level
(LevelingAlogorithmEnum desiredAlgorithm).   How does an OSLC modeling
service allow a consumer to ask the service to level the resources using
one of its algorithms. The "one of it's algorithms" probably isn't hard...a
parameter of the HTTP call on the Resource resource, just like in the 3GL
call, but what's the URL and HTTP verb?

Do we have a standard way of translating actions into OSLC URL's?
Certainly the individual actions a service provides are domain specific, so
maybe this question is not something that's standard so not part of core???

Andy Berner
Lead Architect, ISV Technical Enablement and Strategy
IBM Rational Business Development
972 561-6599
ajberner at us.ibm.com

Ready for IBM Rational software partner program -
http://www.ibm.com/isv/rational/readyfor.html


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  |Dave <snoopdave at gmail.com>                                                                                                                        |
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  |oslc-core at open-services.net                                                                                                                       |
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  |03/04/2010 01:55 PM                                                                                                                               |
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  |[oslc-core] OSLC Core WG March 4, 2010 meeting minutes posted                                                                                     |
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  |oslc-core-bounces at open-services.net                                                                                                               |
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We had a productive workgroup meeting this morning. We reviewed
status, talked about collections again and walked through the parts of
the Core Spec draft that cover OSLC Defined Resources and how our
RDF/XML representations should be formed, especially for Query
Resources.

You can find the meeting minutes here:
   http://open-services.net/bin/view/Main/OslcCoreMeetings03032010

Also, I captured the issues raised during the meeting on our OSLC Core
Spec schedule and issue tracking page here:
   http://open-services.net/bin/view/Main/OslcCoreV1Issues

Thanks,
Dave

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