> Jarl, I didn't speak up, because I'm still not clear what you mean. > > You're concerned that there is no standard schema for the XML of the input > and output of individual applications (or components)? What does that have > to do with software engineering design patterns? Design patterns are more > abstract than data formats. > I'm not saying we should use design patterns for describing in\output of applications that are executed by Piper, but I've the feeling we can make use of the technology. Both situations are very close: a pattern that describes a modules of a legacy system so that the module can be re-used in an other system without loosing the functionality is very close to describing an application that will be used in a distributed environment. You talk about abstraction, which to me is the clue to a proper XML scheme for application description. Piper needs to have the applications described beyond their legacy functionality. Like the way UML does abstracts data. But we need something for functionality, instead of data. Sorry I'm not very clear, but this is simply because I hardly know how to tackle this problem. bye, jarl