since I'm a self-proclaimed "fan" of the W3C, I feel obliged to report on thier latest activities, even if I don't really have any sort of take on the relevancy of their new standards. I know it has to do with XML-binary, which some are (hoping?) to use in order to decrease the network and CPU processing power required to move around XML messages.

I for one have not experience any significant performance bottlenecks in my work with XML, but it is more due to the fact that our XML systems are not in production where there are millions of message being delivered. webmethods uses XML messages under the sheets, but it is all intra-app, so there would be no network stress to speak of. perhaps when we get more processes running simultaneously, we'll notice performance slow down due to processor resources being taxed.

until then, though, I don't anticipate using XML-binary to any extent.

am hopefully getting started on a php web services project that will be the basis of my work for lamp5. but for now, this article is a good read.

Tarak Modi is becoming a favorite of mine. he seems a very astute and pragmatic observer of the WS landscape. his most recent blog entry is a good follow up to his previous one, in which he talked about the confusion around the WS-* specifications. in this one, he links to an article he wrote that talks about the reasons for the explosion in standards/specifications.

I agree 100% with his analysis. reading it also encouraged me to pay more attention to WS-I as its profiles could evolve into the guiding standards for the 2nd generation WS specifications, like W3C is for the 1st generation.

I know Tarak would agree that although the WS-* standards are confusing, but are, in fact, manageable. I assume he would also agree that these standards are, in fact, required for some distributed systems. and I do agree with him that keeping Web Services applications as simple as possible is the best way to avoid the confusion and complexity of WS-*. But I would also caution that ignoring a WS-* standard that performs a function you need could mean trouble down the road if/when a large number of other systems are built around the standard, and you'll have to play catch-up to be able to work with them.

I'm sad to say that the lack of posts here is mostly due to the lack of anything of real substance happening. in XML, there have been a lot of announcements about XML accelorators, development tools and tool features, and award s here and there. but nothing I consider ground-breaking or monumental.

I typed out a lengthy review of this .Net overview, but thru the wonders of HTTP authorization, sessions, and firewall rules, it was lost forever to the devouring appetite of LAN nazis. I will hopefully be able to comment on it in depth (again) soon.

I forgot to post a link to an entry in my brother's blog discussing the recent patent action by IBM. the entry also has my comment on his post, so be sure to read it all.

VERY important for anyone as excited as I am about Web Services is this article from cio.com which explains all the caution and requirements that should be applied to the hype of Web Services. the note about REST web services deserves special attention, since I think it touches on a very important nerve that most of us SOAP-aholics need to be realistic about...

First, to appease or playcate to SOAP-aholics like myself, know that SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, and WS-* most assuredly have their places in the complex distributed systems of the future. But, SOAP and the associated header stacks like WS-Security and the like are very much complicating the originally simplistic scope of Web Services.

For now, at least, Web Services should start slowly on simple distributed application integration. Rather than get caught up in the craze of ripping out entire existing systems and replacing them with a mass of UDDI registries of BPEL-based WS processes, let the industry get used to and fully utilize REST as a WS protocol.

It encourages interest, and when some of the message-centric, highly evolved business processes start requiring a distributed systems approach, SOAP and its related technologies will be more established, and more approachable by developers.

I used to be a die-hard SOAP advocate, but after building a couple HTTP-based web services, I have seen how easy it is in comparison to SOAP and WSDL. The kind of systems I was building were indeed simpler systems, and a complex business process like complete B2B procurement obviously requires the orchestration of BPEL as enabled by SOAP, but take REST for a spin and enjoy the simple treasures of Web Services.

the title, "What Execs Want to See from Open Source in 2005," screams for the article to be read by open-source programmers. But, there was an interesting quote in regards to recognition by managers that open-source libraries are even more important than open source applications:

"They are now available for Web services, XML processing...Virtually any significant programming problem that is commonly encountered in the course of software development now has an active Open Source development community addressing it."

This is most definitely true, but I would say that the PHP community is not as far along in its adoption of/support for web services as the Java or C community. Most notably, as expressed in the second article, linked as 'support for':

"A lot of development environments and IDEs generate WSDL automatically for you from your Web service classes. For example, when using Microsoft Visual Studio.NET to create C# Web services, you have a wizard that creates the Web service for you based on a C# class. As you add Web methods to the class, the WSDL is automatically generated by the runtime environment for you. Using PHP you don't have this luxury, as you need the WSDL first...A nice idea for a new open source project would be a WSDL generator that takes a PHP class and generates WSDL from it!"

Well-met, Laurence Moroney. I hope to get that project going, though I don't know how many other people are as interested as I am, and I'll admit I don't think I have the mad skills necessary to do it alone. Maybe I just need to get started.

In any case, read the entire OS article, as it is good knowledge about what IT wants from OS.