RE: RPG as a Web Service Consumer

Hopefully my unhelpful posts on this subject to M-L get sucked down the
black hole.

I would say (helpful or not...;-) that XML-RPC was a precursor and was
(co?)invented by Dave Winer www.scripting.com who also coauthored SOAP.
It's supposed to be lightweight, efficient and has WIDEspread usage, from
what I gather.  Dunno much about coding it, but mebbe could get more info.
There's a HUGE amount of conflict re: whether XML-RPC suffices or whether it
should be deprecated and EVERY service should ONLY be called via Soap (with
WSDL introspection) and should ONLY use Get/Post.  These conflicts have been
unresolved for years (and may never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction,
afaik).

There was also a proposed lightweight "standard" for RSD (Really Simple
auto-Discovery) to do what WSDL does, but it hasn't gotten much whuffie
(perceived-prestige) so hasn't gained traction at all so far.

Anyhoo, perhaps some-a these from Yahoo search on XML-RPC would be useful?

"XML-RPC Home Page" (there's a directory of implementations that may be
useful, in many languages not including RPG)
http://www.xml-rpc.com/

"A simple guide to choosing the best protocol for your XML Remote Procedure
Call needs."
http://weblog.masukomi.org/writings/xml-rpc_vs_soap.htm
(Outstanding, imo, tho have only just skimmed it a couple/few times)

"XML-RPC HOWTO"
http://xmlrpc-c.sourceforge.net/xmlrpc-howto/xmlrpc-howto.html
(Haven't read, but looks good and recall Eric Kidd's name from one-a
listservs)



| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
| Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 12:40 AM

| Of course, the more I dig into it, the more I find that the whole web
| services "standard" is nearly as ugly as the EJB stuff.  WSDL is as
| over-engineered as most everything else in J2EE, and the complexities of
| SOAP and XML are not insignificant.  I was hoping for a relatively
| lightweight interface, but it's not to be.
|
| I'm going to have to create a WS-Lite one of these days, but for now I
| just want to figure out the protocol.