Integration with Rules (actions)

Why not integrate Rules module with Web Services?

Rationale

Every action that Rules module can perform is can potentially be performed form an external site. So if we can create a comment using Rules (inside Drupal), we can allow external programs create comments. But today, we should declare the same action (ex: create comment) all over again if we want to expose it to a webservice. There is no reason on creating 2 different actions/services declarations.

Also, as simple webservice clients, we can call an external site using Rules. Example: when we create a new content in the site, Drupal call automatically Twitter or Google Docs or any webservice and replicate the content there. The possibilities of automation are endless.

Ideas

The initial idea is:
1* to create a new version of each module (2.x)
2* to focus the development on Drupal 7 with potential backport to D
3* to use OOP (object orient programming) as much as possible, just like Earl's Views and Panels

Tasks

1* Define a single Data schema that allow both Rules and WebServices modules use the action without much modification. It should have the general description like title and also a list of arguments needed, the access "callback" , etc
2* Make the whole operations of calling actions (services) "pluggable", so we can add new features into these actions later, like WebServices-related stuff
3* Split the Web Services module into Server and Client modules, since we can call or provide the services.
4* Rethink the module dependencies chain

Note: there are several details we planned that are not yet described here

regards,

massa