Over the past few weeks James Snell, Dave Chappell, and I have been
talking about ways in which the asynchronicity introduced by the IME
layer in Axis can be exposed to client code.  Attached to this message
is a proposal and sample code that addresses this issue.  Dave or James,
please commit this into the proposals directory at your convenience.

The main characteristics of the proposal are:
- Expose a blend of the JMS, SAAJ, and JAX-RPC API to the client that
facilitates asynchronous interactions.  This API borrows the
asynchronous invocation model from JMS and the web service information
from JAX-RPC and SAAJ.
- Support for outbound web service operation styles like solicit
response and notification
- A set of samples that show the new API in action

The main difference between this proposal and IME is the target
audience.  Bear in mind that this will be a public client-facing API as
opposed to the IME which is strictly for internal use.  An analogy to
Xerces can be made in that the IME is like XNI - low-level, internal,
and targeted at framework developers.  The proposed API is like DOM and
SAX in that it is intended for client code to interact with.

There is a good deal of work involved with implementing this proposal.
The first steps are already underway with the IME work being done by
James.  This is not targeted at a near term release.  James and I
estimated that this could be delivered in the April/May timeframe.

Please review the attached content if possible.  Any suggestions/flames
will really help us to move this stuff along.  Also, if anyone is
interested in lending a hand in the implementation that would be MUCH
appreciated.

Thanks,
Jaime
---
Jaime Meritt
Manager, Software Engineering
Sonic Software Corporation
http://www.sonicsoftware.com