I’m a few days late, but Sam Ruby posted his excellent REST+SOAP essay last week. I was surprised to see it not get more fanfare. I commented to Sam that I was concerned about this bit;
Now add high level methods which take care of all composite
create, update, and delete operations.
Sam suggested to me off-line that he was thinking about it in terms of just passing data over a wall/membrane, to which I responded that this is exactly how POST works; that the operation that occurs is determined solely by the server. So we may be in synch, but given previous things I’ve heard him say, and his work on SOAP and WSDL, I wonder if we really are. But here’s hoping!!
An interesting discussion on xml-dist-app about implicit versus explicit use of the Web Method Specification Feature of SOAP 1.2. I guess I just have a hard time understanding why you’d want to hide the method, either by defining a default, or deriving it from the MEP in use. I mean, how else do you accomplish something without knowing what method you’re invoking?
I’m glad Sam Ruby is contributing to the SOAP/REST discussion. As a leader in the Web services space, his word goes a long way. I’m looking forward to reading his article.
As for “bad advocacy”, I don’t believe that I’m an advocate for REST, at least in the REST/SOAP discussions. I see myself as more of a soothsayer, trying to warn people that the current approach to Web services cannot do what people hope it can do; namely, work on the Internet. But my hope is that the industry understands this soon, because I’d prefer to see it put resources into more fruitful endeavours rather than spending them repeating past mistakes. But if they don’t, then they’ll just have to learn the hard way.
Curmudgeonly yours. 8-)
Spent some time thinking about how the Apache Axis project could support the SOAP 1.2 “Web Method Feature”, the major architectural difference between SOAP 0.9/1.0/1.1, and SOAP 1.2. I’m not sure that many Web services folks understand the implications of this yet, but it’s clear to me that it dispells the notion of SOAP as a layer, which is bound to mess with some software. Layers hide other layers beneath them, but what the Web Method Feature says is that a developer must be aware of which HTTP method they’re using if they’re using SOAP bound to HTTP. Let’s hope they all see it that way too. 8-)
The topic is being discussed on axis-dev now.
The big news from yesterday, WS-Security is submitted to OASIS. For those who don’t think Web services have much of a future, this is really good news for the Web and the W3C, as it removes influence from the Web Services Activity, specifically the Web Services Architecture Working Group (of which I’m a member, but that I’d be happy to see go away). Of course, many Web Services proponents are quite concerned, as it puts more control in the hands of MS and IBM.
Welcome to my first blog! Here’s why I’m calling it “Mark Baker, Tech Curmudgeon”.
I believe that distributed systems that work at Internet scale are extraordinarily difficult to build; much more difficult than is commonly believed, even amoungst those who know that it’s difficult. I believe that there are very few people on this planet who have the expertise necessary to architect such a system. Of course, the Web isn’t the only example, but it’s a great one because of what it can do (as compared to, say, email or FTP, which are limited in their capabilities).
So when the “next big thing” comes along, and it’s not developed by people who I know get how difficult it is, I’m naturally skeptical.
I’ll try not to offend anybody with my posts, but since my job is to be critical of others’ work, and people invariably put a lot of themselves into their work, this is going to be hard to achieve. But please know that it is not my intent to criticize any person or group of people, only to critique technology.