Posted by groovecoder
on 02 Feb 2005
Liam Quin is asking open source developers
a good question. I don't have the answer, but I think I got a lot out of reading his article anyway. it has taken me aback a few times when smarter people than I talk about something replacing XML, but this article is the first time I encountered a type of suggestion to change, alter, or replace some of XML and felt like it was a valid idea.</p>
I may leave some neophyte comments, but in my experience (B2B interchanges) XML is the best solution, and is only gaining momentum in that area, so for that area of applications, I can't think of anything better.
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Posted by groovecoder
on 01 Feb 2005
I thought the title was pretty fitting, although still very far-fetched. it does go thru a nice scenario of
a real-world use of web services in making a business process more agile and adaptive, so that's the plug-and-play part. but we're not yet to universal plug-and-play where you can instantly hook up into any service you need, as most services will always require at least a bit of custom work to get started. but as the standards used by the services gain widespread use, the work should get easier and easier.
Posted by groovecoder
on 27 Jan 2005
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.</p>
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.
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Posted by groovecoder
on 25 Jan 2005
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.
Posted by groovecoder
on 19 Jan 2005
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.</p>
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.
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