xml-dev - RE: XML over HTTP: SOAP and ...?

["Box, Don" <dbox@develop.com>]

Title: RE: XML over HTTP: SOAP and ...?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: DuCharme, Robert [mailto:DuCharmR@moodys.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 8:39 AM
> To: xml-dev@xml.org
> Subject: XML over HTTP: SOAP and ...?
>
>
> (from David Megginson's "Random XTech observations)
> >6. Everyone wants to send XML over HTTP.  Nothing new there, but I'd
> >   like to see some kind of interoperable, critical mass emerge,
> >   whatever the flavour.
>
> When a DCOM-oriented colleague asked me about SOAP, I did some quick
> research to find out the basics. While a heavily
> Microsoft-backed proposed
> standard

SOAP isn't just MS, although having their name on the spec pretty much masks anyone else's involvment ;-)

> often means that there's a non-Microsoft alternative
> out there, I
> didn't see any alternative to SOAP.

There are plenty of XML-based transfer syntaxes out there that get applied to HTTP. We had a BOF at XTech and one at Sun/Netscape. A bunch of folks are working together to try to get everyone to converge on some common ground. I even have a picture of me hugging Larry Cable from Sun.

> I gather from
> http://www.develop.com/soap/soapfaq.htm#22 that xml-rpc
> cooperates with SOAP
> more than it competes with it, although I may have misunderstood this.

That has always been my understanding. I just uploaded my XML-RPC->SOAP XSLT. Check out http://soap.develop.com/xmlrpc. As SOAP is a functional superset of XML-RPC, one can go from XML-RPC to SOAP with no loss, going the other way is tougher but doable. I am hoping to work with the XML-RPC community to spec out a canonical way to go back and forth. My XSLT is a first step in that direction.

> After reading the above comment from David, I wondered: what
> other flavors
> are out there?

Here's a partial list:

SOAP: http://www.develop.com/soap
XML-RPC: http://www.xmlrpc.com
XMOP/XMTP: http://jabr.ne.mediaone.net/default.htm
IOTP: http://search.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-trade-iotp-v1.0-protocol-07.txt
Blocks: http://search.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-mrose-blocks-protocol-00.txt

Also, WIDL, WDDX, RosettaNet, ebXML, and a few dozen others I can't remember off hand. We looked at a lot of prior art while working on SOAP, and I think you can see the influence of a lot of existing marshaling protocols.

DB
http://www.develop.com/dbox