Re: So what do SOAP and XML-RPC buy you?

[David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>]

> 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.

If "anyObject" is literally any object, then there's a HUGE downside to that:
Application developers start to "think" in terms of APIs that work within a
particular programming environment, rather than in terms of interoperable data.
They rely on automagic marshaling code they don't/can't control.  And bit
by bit, interoperability starts to disappear...

Of course, for folk controlling those programming environments, that
is a feature (customers then can't switch vendors so easily).  And some
customers may even be comfortable ceding control over those parts of
their business strategies, given time-to-market wins.

If that's "any object defined using an Interface Definition Language (IDL)"
then that's less of an issue.

- Dave