Re: So what do SOAP and XML-RPC buy you? (was Re: Massive Cross-Post:The State of XML-RPC, April 2001)

[Matt Sergeant <matt@sergeant.org>]

On 19 Apr 2001, Ken MacLeod wrote:

> Edd Dumbill <edd@usefulinc.com> writes:
>
> > On Mon, Apr 16, 2001 at 11:22:44PM +0100, Matt Sergeant wrote:
> > > On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, XML Everywhere wrote:
> > > > If you have XML messaging over http, why do you need anything
> > > > else?
>
> > > Though the final schedule isn't out yet, this is exactly the talk
> > > I'm giving for O'Reilly's Open Source conference (albeit actually
> > > in the mod_perl track). HTTP is a great applications protocol - it
> > > handles errors, parameter passing, multiple result sets (via
> > > MIME), return type negotiation, etc. I hope to open people's minds
> > > to other possibilities (though I don't expect many attendees!).
>
> > I'm interested in what the perceived buy is from the XML protocols
> > over straight XML+HTTP.  My suspicion is that the main two reasons
> > are the lack of perception of HTTP in this light, and the lack of
> > friendly enough APIs (esp. on Microsoft platforms) to enable HTTP to
> > be used between applications.
>
> One thing that XML-RPC or SOAP buy you (today) over straight XML+HTTP
> is automatic marshalling.
>
> Specifically, what is missing is that you can't do:
>
>   http.put(url, anyObject)
>
> and have 'anyObject' marshalled and serialized to XML automatically by
> the library, and then sent over HTTP.

But that's a factor of the library you use for SOAP/XMLRPC, not a factor
of XMLRPC or SOAP itself. You could just as easily write an
auto-marshalling module that does this without the SOAP envelope formats.

You still have to negitiate with the reciever exactly what formats and
parameters you can send/recieve.

-- 
<Matt/>

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