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> From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@simonstl.com]
>
> On Thu, 2002-04-25 at 20:33, Mike Deem wrote:
> > My technical argument is this: all that matters when using SOAP is
XML
> > and all the power of XML can be leveraged when building applications
> > that use SOAP.
>
> You don't need SOAP to leverage XML. If all that matters when using
> SOAP is XML, I'll take my XML straight up, thanks.
But an URI with an HTTP GET isn't XML.
If you are doing HTTP POST (or SMTP, FTP, or any other protocol that
moves data from one socket to another) with XML content, you are almost
there.
Now, suppose you want to include a digital signature with the message.
This signature really should not be part of core message content itself
(you should not have to change the schema for this content to include
the signature). You need some mechanism to separate this extra
information from the core message content.
SOAP does this with an envelope that contains the core content (the
body), and the extra information (the headers) in a well defined
structure. Having this well defined structure, and the well defined
processing model behind it, is also a technical advantage of SOAP.
Yes, SOAP does mix the message (body) and the envelope/headers. The
inconvenience this causes in some cases is, IMO, made up for by the fact
that the *entire* message is still just XML.
== Mike ==
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
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