We have to talk to various disparate systems via web services. They are all slightly different - some use the WSDL/SOAP approach, some are RESTful and some are just simple XML over an HTTP post. We can talk to them all from an RPG perspective but it always comes with a certain amount of pain to start with.
When we have to talk to a WSDL/SOAP web service we can do it in about 5 minutes flat using SOAPUI or Visual Studio - but when we want to do it from RPG that is when it gets to be a pain. It seems there are tools to import WSDL and generate the proxy code you need to use the web service for most languages except RPG - so you have to knife and fork it together. Cumbersome and error prone. We have downloaded a tool called WSDL2RPG however, but haven't had a chance to play with it yet. WSDL and SOAP are oriented towards object oriented languages, which leaves RPG a square peg in a round hole.
One other observation - of the several disparate systems we have to interface with, only about 60% of them use the WSDL/SOAP approach.
- Kevin
-----Original Message-----
From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nathan Andelin
Sent: 27 January 2012 23:09
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: [WEB400] Web Services War Stories
Friday late afternoon is probably not the best time to start a discussion like this. But some of my thoughts are extensions of the XMLSERVICE discussion that has been going strong on the RPG list this week. This discussion is for Web Service producers and consumers.
One problem I'd like to address is the cost and complexity of "recommended" Web Services architectures based on WSDL and SOAP. If you go to study the WSDL & SOAP interface specifications there's a good chance that you'll be asked to first get a good understanding on XML, XML Name Spaces, XML Schema Definitions, & XML Paths as prerequisites. Then WSDL. Then SOAP. Then how they all come together in Web Services architecture.
I guess it's not a requirement to study the underlying interfaces and specifications. You could just license the appropriate middleware, frameworks, toolkits, and runtime environments from Microsoft and IBM. I haven't done that.
Web services appear to be the vehicle du jour for getting otherwise disparate systems to inter-operate. I'm facing a problem right now concerning that, which I'd like to share if this discussion catches on. But first I'd like to ask if you have general thoughts or opinions or stories or travails about integrating disparate systems through Web Services? What do you think of WSDL and SOAP and associated frameworks?
-Nathan
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