4/19/2002 11:04:40 PM, Robin Berjon <> wrote:
>
>That rant (or semi-rant, depending on the tone) has been around the net [1]
>for a few days and imho isn't about to stop too soon as more widely visible
>web services appear.
Hmm, one comment on that weblog may say it all: "There's one significant
difference between Google's XML results and Google's SOAP API: the
XML results gave you a document and left you on your own; the SOAP
API gives you pre-digested data structures."
"Pre-digested" being the operative word, and very much in the spirit of Robin's
reply. Oh well, I've lost my mind, but I still have my teeth, so I guess
I'll stick with the old folks' way a bit longer.
>I'm not denigrating anyone, and in fact this approach could be better in the
>very same way that some languages are sometimes considered better because
>they let you do less.
I for one don't mind the option (or even the default) of getting the data back
pre-digested into data structures, lists, tuples, or whatever the native language
idiom happens to be. I do mind a) having to mutter a bunch of gibberish to get the data and
b) not having the option of seeing the response in its raw XML (SOAP is fine!) format.
