For the sake of this discussion, I'd suggest that we stick to web services
that implement WSDL, SOAP, XML, specifications, etc.
There's what the standards bodies declare as the truth of real world web
services, and then there are real world web services. By my estimation
there are near equal amounts of SOAP based web services as there are ones
that use "something else" (though these are only the ones I come across).
The "something else" usually means ABC Company put together an XSD with
XMLSpy, exported it to a PDF and host the PDF on their website. Even big
players like UPS, FedEx, NYSE, auto manufacturers, drug companies, etc do
this (first hand experience talking). IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle etc, can
make standards till they are blue in the face, but most programmers take the
path of least resistance that adequately provides for meeting a business
need (note I said adequate and not poorly).
Some of SOAP's general concepts are great. I really like the fact that I
can simply read an Apache environment variable (SOAPAction) to know how to
route a program without having to partially parse the XML document to learn
what type it is (i.e. PO, shipAck, itemPriceLU, etc). I also like the fact
that they tried to standardize on how to return hard errors (i.e. SOAP
Faults), but outside of those handful of things done "good enough", SOAP is
bloated and the other features are either seldom used or a complete pain in
the buttox.
Well, those are my thoughts on the matter.
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
midrange.com
