Ralph,
I hope you are right. I can offer one edge case, however, but it is only a
Research prototype.
When we did our BPF prototype (runtime for B2B using tpaML), we did an
exercise with OBI. We created a tpaML instance for OBI. However, OBI does
not (or at least did not) have the concept of a conversationId in the
header. So, we used the purchase order number to represent the unit of
business. The PO number is in payload as far as our middleware prototype
was concerned, so at the middleware level, there appeared to be a single
endless conversation. Granted, we might have found a way to do this by
introducing a concept of "no conversation". In any case, that was what led
me to suggest that there might be edge cases of legacy software that behave
like a single never-ending conversation. I hope that those edge cases
never turn up but from the viewpoint of conversationId, it doesn't matter
because a conversation can run longer than persistDuration and I am not
sure that "infinitely long" would have to be handled any differently from
"very long".
Regards,
Marty
*************************************************************************************
Martin W. Sachs
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
P. O. B. 704
Yorktown Hts, NY 10598
914-784-7287; IBM tie line 863-7287
Notes address: Martin W Sachs/Watson/IBM
Internet address: mwsachs @ us.ibm.com
*************************************************************************************
Ralph Berwanger <rberwanger@bTrade.com> on 12/06/2001 10:12:32 AM
To: ebxml-msg@lists.oasis-open.org
cc:
Subject: RE: [ebxml-msg] Re: Comments on the 1.09 about ConversationId
Marty,
Speaking from the legacy community point-of-view, we have been
discussing the fact that each EDI interchange (set of purchase orders)
would be a unique conversation. I cannot recall a single discussion
where the concept of a never-ending conversation came up (except for a
couple standards bodies but that is a different subject all together).
That does not mean that you are not correct in the assumption, only that
it appears contrary to my experience. Also, I said that I do not
'recall' and that can provide some hints to my baseline.
Ralph
ASC X12, Vice Chair