Re: [xml-dev] More predictions to mull over

[Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>]

Michael Champion wrote:


> hype.  Still, I tend to agree with Eric Newcomer 
> http://blogs.iona.com/newcomer/archives/000457.html “WS-* has a lot of 
> critics but no good proposals for alternatives.

I'm having trouble figuring out what the problem really is that we need 
alternatives for. I'm not sure anyone actually has the problem(s) the 
WS-* folks are claiming to solve. I've written about that before:

http://cafe.elharo.com/web/rest-vs-soap-a-parable/

I read pieces like Eric's (and I've read a lot of them) and I just don't 
see a real problem there. Maybe it's too abstract for me. Tell me about 
getting the accounting system to talk to the database and the web 
server. Now that's a problem I can sink my teeth into. It's also one I 
can solve without resorting to big complicated WS-* specs.

I keep listening for the real problem that really needs the WS-machinery 
and I keep not hearing it. Instead I get lots of verbiage about "the 
importance of enterprise software standardization" and "'stovepiping' 
simply because most folks were not even thinking about IT in terms of an 
enterprise level asset".

Those aren't real problems, and I don't even know how to begin talking 
about them. That the salespeople can't file their travel vouchers from 
the field: that's a real problem. Give me a problem like that and I can 
roll my sleeves up and start working on it. (XForms helps with that one 
by the way.) But "enterprise software standardization" is not a problem 
to be solved. It is a philosophy that is helpful only in so far as it 
gets real problems solved. If it does, great. If it doesn't, ignore it.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
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