Re: Web Services War Stories

There have been many informative responses on this thread. The point was
made in one post but I will also add that it is very valuable to have a
WSDL if you are the web service producer. Nearly all our customers use
the WSDL to generate their web service consumer skeleton code (read .NET).
The soapUI tool is a must-have when testing web services and creates
sample requests for you given a WSDL. Without the WSDL template you'd
likely need to provide a good amount of documentation about how the
service works. The WSDL handles most of that documentation for you.

Thanks,
Todd Allen
Estes Express Lines
tallen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx>
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01/27/2012 06:11 PM
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[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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