[MOBY-l] service = method ?

[Martin Senger]

Hi all,
   I am trying to use Moby-Central for several web services we have
developed at EBI (concretely the services wrapping all EMBOSS programs).
Doing that I found that the documentation says that "service name is the
name of the SOAP object method all that transacts the service", and also
that "services are subroutines in normal Perl modules...".
   Disregarding the remark about Perl (what about services written in a
different language?) it seems to mean that only services represented by a
single method are supported.
   I have asked Mark about it and he confirmed that "...that is correct,
and it was a design decision.  Services are single calls - atomic
interactions.  Atomic interactions may, however, be pipelined together in
various useful ways."
   My opinion on this is slightly different. I think that having a
single-method services is surely useful and makes the communication much
simpler and I understand that the service providers may be encouraged to
design their services in such way. But in the same time, an IMHO, the Moby
registry (central) should not be restricted only to such kind of services
because simply other kinds will exist and it would be pity if the Moby
Central cannot accomodate them.
   May I ask the others for their opinions?

   I also apologize if I missed something obvious - I am quite new to the
whole MOBY stuff (I did not participate on any of the Moby meetings).

   Regards,
   Martin

-- 
Martin Senger

EMBL Outstation - Hinxton                Senger at EBI.ac.uk     
European Bioinformatics Institute        Phone: (+44) 1223 494636      
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