[Openroad-users] David Tondreau will be giving a web cast...

[Jim Antill]

Hi,

I'll say here that I've never used OpenROAD to develop a web-based  
app, instead using Java, XML and HTML etc. Apologies if any of these  
points are wide of the mark.

I must admit I'd assumed that Client->Server communication would be  
handled by using something generic like SOAP. It's a bit of a  
sweeping statement to say that SOAP and XML are slow and verbose, it  
would surely depend on the size of the messages you were sending etc.  
Or is it that an OpenROAD client/server setup needs to transfer a lot  
of information in it's conversations. Having the facility to exchange  
information in either format would be a lot more flexible.

Opening up OpenROAD "web-services" would be great, apart from  
OpenROAD's total lack of any XML functionality (and the  
aforementioned lack of a SOAP interface). As with Adrian, I've raised  
this point a couple of times and seemingly nothing has happened. XML  
is an extremely powerful way of presenting and manipulating data as  
it presents the data in a structure that can be easily validated. It  
also permits querying with Xpath, transforming with XSLT, and is  
useful when transporting data between the different application  
layers etc.

The omission of these tools, I think, would seriously limit what an  
OpenROAD service and web-based architecture could do. For example, it  
wouldn't be able to build HTML dynamically by transforming XML  
documents using XSLT (something that's done quite frequently), query  
XML documents to locate specific parts etc. And it would be difficult  
to handle the XML contents of a SOAP message. XML document generation  
tools would also be required so that well-formed documents could be  
built programatically. Fair enough, this could be introduced by using  
something like MSXML but that introduces yet more complications.

Maybe the work that Luminary are doing will introduce XML processing  
to OpenROAD which will be a long-awaited, and very gratefully  
received, feature.

These points taken together would seem to limit an OpenROAD client to  
being used usefully with an OpenROAD server and vice-versa using it's  
non-SOAP interface. IMHO with OpenROAD now being capable of building  
web-based apps XML processing suddenly becomes a very core feature,  
one that must be supplied by Ingres rather than developed by  
individual developers. Supplying the XML tools would make SOAP based  
messaging (particularly handing the XML contained in the SOAP message  
on the server side) much more achievable and so open up a whole range  
of new possibilities.

And if you're supplying XML tools, then part of this must be an  
interface in the workbench to allow XML to be created and validated  
against schemas. Writing XML documents can be tricky, made next to  
impossible by using something that doesn't highlight errors such as  
incomplete tag-pairs etc.

Just my opinion - I'll stand back and warm my hands on the rising  
flames :-)

Regards,
Jim


On 1 May 2007, at 14:01, David Tondreau wrote:

> Hi Pete,
>
> Actually, I'm going to post the DAL generation utility as an open  
> source tool and community project.  We are working on a publicly  
> accessible web site to host these projects.  Stay tuned!
>
> The HTTP protocol is very specific to an OpenROAD client talking to  
> an OpenROAD server and uses an internal encoding of the data stream  
> -- i.e, not-soap-because-soap-and-xml-are-too-verbose-and- 
> slow ;-).  Its part of a strategy to make sure we keep the link  
> between an OpenROAD Client and the OpenROAD Server very simple and  
> is a unique solution to that configuration.
>
> I agree that we need to make it easier to "publish" SCPs as web  
> services.  The Proxy Generator that is being contributed by  
> Luminary Solutions will do exactly that.  It will support the  
> automatic generation of Java and C# proxies to object and SCPs in  
> the OpenROAD Server so that they can be easily published using your  
> favorite application server.  Again, more on this as we get closer.
>
> Regards,
> David
>
> David Tondreau
> Architect
> Ingres Corp.
> 01-703-738-4811 (w/m)
> david.tondreau at ingres.com
>
>
>
> From: openroad-users-bounces at peerlessit.com [mailto:openroad-users- 
> bounces at peerlessit.com] On Behalf Of Pete Rabjohns
> Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 8:15 AM
> To: International OpenROAD Users
> Subject: Re: [Openroad-users] David Tondreau will be giving a web  
> cast...
>
> Great talk – sorry I missed it, but I enjoyed the Webinar recording  
> on Hello OpenROAD.
>
>
>
> Quick question on your DAL, which you mentioned you have something  
> to auto generate the SQL for simple DB classes – is that something  
> that is planned for inclusion into OpenROAD?
>
>
>
> Another question – is the HTTP protocol used to talk to the App  
> Server a SOAP protocol, or an OpenROAD looky-likey?
>
>
>
> It seems so close to opening up to direct Web Services into the  
> OpenROAD Server without the need to build your own translation  
> stack. It would be a nice feature to expose SCP’s and GSCP’s as Web  
> Services.
>
>
>
> Pete
>
>
>
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