From Object-oriented Programming to Service-oriented Computing - How to Improve Interoperability by Preserving Subtyping

The object-oriented paradigm is increasingly used in the implementation and the use of web services. However, the mismatch between objects and document structures in the wire has a negative impact over interoperability, more particularly when subtyping is involved. In this paper, we discuss how to improve interoperability in this context by preserving the subsumption property associated to subtyping. First we show the weaknesses of existing web service frameworks used for serialization and deserialization. Second we propose new foundations for serialization and deserialization, which leads to the specification of a new data binding between objects and document structures, compatible with subtyping.