I'm not surprised

Posted by groovecoder on 14 Dec 2004
this article states that industry 'analysts' were surprised at the backlash to the growing complexities of the WS-* standards. I'm not surprised by it at all, though I don't share the same inhibitions about using complicated WS standards. I actually think the complicated nature of WS is unavoidable if WS-based systems are going to be used in major enterprise-class software.</p>

it does mention another area I think lamp5 work could be directed in:

"Forrester's Gilpin said he has seen a backlash as well, although he sees a different type of trend emerging to solve it. He said there will be an increasing number of tools that will hide the complexity from developers, so they can more easily build Web services."



I could eventually see a lamp5 Eclipse plugin, similar to the WebSphere WS plugin I mentioned from IBM. it would, of course, depend on a properly configured lamp5 server, but then could allow a more visual approach to building the php5 web services, allowing to set WS-Coordination and WS-Context attributes/settings via a nice dialogue or pop-up of some kind. the plugin then creates the proper php code and the lamp5 server uses the code to generate the WSDL's and all its goodness.



I really wish I had a more complex Web Service to build that used the advanced WS-* standards. especially BPEL4WS....anyone got one?

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php-based J2EE approach?

Posted by groovecoder on 11 Dec 2004
I was a little puzzled by this, after reading and getting excited about the direction of ActiveGrid, and the concept of lamp5 and Web Services in general. apparently, Simian is attempting to create a J2EE-like server based on php.</p>

the phpBeans (similar to EJB's - Enterprise Java Beans), the phpBeans Object Server, and phpBeans Client API allow php objects to be encapsulated in such a way that they may invoke one another on remote machines and all that jazz.

what I find particularly puzzling is that Web Services enable the same kind of thing. you wrap up your php classes and expose them with WSDL's, and I use SOAP clients to invoke them from anywhere else in the world. but the use of a phpBean and phpBean Object Server takes that cool concept OFF of standardized protocols like SOAP, HTTP, etc and puts it into a client API.

but exposing your php classes/objects as web services means ANY program on ANY platform can use them. exposing your php classes by making them phpBeans and putting them on a phpBeans Object Server means only other php classes that use the phpBeans Client API can use them.

though both ActiveGrid and phpBeans are in their infancy (though they are more mature than lamp5!), I would like to see developers embrace the ActiveGrid approach more than the phpBeans approach. I think web services are being adopted by enterprises in place of approaches like J2EE and CORBA and other language-oriented integration methods.
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double up

Posted by groovecoder on 11 Dec 2004
I didn't actually read this entire thing, but it came in thru my Google alerts and I wanted to comment on Amazon.</p>

the article states that it is counterintuitive for Amazon to benefit from opening up its system via web services (lowercased by me on purpose, since they were originally doing XML over POSTs, GETs, and other, non-SOAP methods...but now they do it all!).

I've always thought exposing their catalogue and shopping cart to others would be an easy way to let others re-market Amazon products. Amazon has their own computer books and computer equipment, but what if a site dedicated to Web Services pulled in plenty of traffic from WS-oriented people. if that site could put its own face on Amazon's storefront, market WS-oriented products more fully, and Amazon could be getting business it would not have gotten otherwise!

I've liked Amazon's web services approach ever since I heard about their reseller program. I like the Google AdSense program for similar reasons. I think the access to information in all kinds of flavors is going to create a lot of extra business for more generic companies.

oh yeah...even my favorite gaming company, Blizzard, has caught onto XML.
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'encouragement' to MySQL

Posted by groovecoder on 09 Dec 2004

RandomThought1

given the sparse knowledge we know about XML support in MySQL, it may be too early to be "criticizing" MySQL, but to me it seems like XML just keeps getting more and more attention, and now here are some links confirming that database vendors are taking notice. if IBM and Microsoft have plans for XML in their databases, I think it should be a good indication to the open-source vendors that enterprises are looking for XML features. I know we are, but given my track record, I won't hold it against anyone to write off any opinion I have on my own.


RandomThought2

here's some lovely marketing garbage about Microsoft .NET...and the winning quote-of-interest goes to:

"By leveraging the power of Microsoft's® .Net™ with XML Web services technology, all of the CSTA programs...can communicate...to the BackOffice database server...via its XML Web services"

Yeah, okay...but all these programs are written with MS technologies anyway, so really they're using Web Services to fix some MS 'spaghetti-code' inside platforms that should talk to each other anyway! What should really happen with Web Services is allowing Microsoft .NET applications speak to other applications...J2EE, PHP, etc. The only interoperability/integration issues this CSTA group has solved are issues that are caused by MS itself. But good for them.



RandomThought3

Since I only skimmed this interview, and I remember how badly it goes for me to offer lengthy opinions on shallow research, I'll just say that BPEL is really quite interesting to me. Now that I've sunk my teeth into some real live WSDL and SOAP, I think BPEL is the most interesting of the 2nd generation WS standards, and I want to find some project where I can apply and learn it.

a couple more news items

Posted by groovecoder on 08 Dec 2004
this is a case where crappy software patents hits close to home. the now-bankrupt CommerceOne auctioned off some software patents relating to Web Services technologies. there's another great description of this madness which points out "...Commerce One patented a method for using standardized electronic documents to automate the sale of goods and services over the Internet." stuff like this makes it very easy to agree with tearing out all software patent law. in all fairness, I should say I don't view CommerceOne as all that evil. they filed some ridiculous patents, sure...but they also gave away a lot of their 'IP' to the open-source community. I'm more afraid of this JGR Acquisitions group who paid $15.5 million and will be looking to make a profit, most likely from IP lawsuits.</p>

in some good news, IBM created a cool Eclipse plugin for Web Services which supposedly allows a developer to more easily visualize and debug web service transactions, or at least, web services hosted on WebSphere! I've thought this would be an awesome feature for Zend Studio or for the php Eclipse plugin, but that's further down the road when apache/php are extended (by us?) to be very powerful web servicers.

today at the MySQL meetup, I presented the php5 code I wrote along with the webservice helper that created/published/hosted the WSDL enabling the code to be re-used anywhere with SOAP capabilities. I think it went over pretty well, but I still need to enhance the service by adding more couriers and consolidating the results into a single XML response. then I'll hopefully get a chance to show that to Mike G. from EDS, as he couldn't be at today's meetup.

nothing else.
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