RE: EDI over http?

[Erron Criddle <ejc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:16 AM 6/27/97 +0200, Andras Salamon <andras@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>

>> My suggestion is to go HTTP Rik...SMTP is too inflexible.
>
>Basic SMTP is very inflexible, which is why the ESMTP framework was
>introduced to allow protocol extensions.  ESMTP is at least as flexible
>as the HTTP protocol extension mechanisms.

<snip>

>I feel that the functional differences between ESMTP and HTTP in this
>context are small enough that the focus at this stage should be on the
>transport model and the information passing between server and client,
>not on the actual implementation of the transport model.  Once there is
>some consensus on the model, it becomes possible to translate it into
>ESMTP or HTTP or Internet-EDI-Protocol or whatever.

I agree with you here Andras...define the framework so as it can be applied
to HTTP or ESMTP.

The only problem I see (that I did not define more clearly in my first
e-mail), is that, basically, SMTP will not support interactive EDI as you
can have more than one SMTP server. A messaging based argument could be
made to support a secondary server (or tertiary), however for true
interactive EDI, it really needs to be just that - interactive.


Regards



Erron Criddle                                    ejc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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