Sun and Microsoft engineers continue to work on up-the-stack interop between Java and .NET. Sun pledged to enable Java interop to Microsoft’s Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) by developing and distributing open source implementations of key WS-specs.
So far Web Services interop is nightmare. Moreover there is ever growing stack of WS “specs” that makes whole issue very complicated. WS _was_ good idea before too many people and interests put a lot of bloat and duplicated buggy effort into it. Developer is supposed now to use “tools” that hides real SOAP operation from him which creates debugging nightmare. Those “bloating comissions” should look at DBUS (http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/dbus) for what design developers like (KISS). If you want really to understand SOAP you will need a LOT of training. Otherwise you have to use “tools” and _hope_ everything will work as intended.
I think the funniest part, however, is even with SOAP (which scales attrociously), people are still using CORBA.
Unfortunately, however, there is a habbit for companies to over engineer a solution that should actually be done by three seperate, but interoperable specifications rather than trying to have some sort of grand unified, does everything including the kitchen sink deal.
I think the funniest part, however, is even with SOAP (which scales attrociously), people are still using CORBA.
You want to see the stuff in Indigo now. It’s turned into the complexity of CORBA!
I wouldn’t be surprised; another attempt by a company to make a grand unified ‘does everything’ concept.
What is required are a large number of small, well documented projects that aim to solve a small number of solutions, so that when it comes to learning and then implementing the technology, programmers aren’t overwhelmed, and thus, end up using the technology in the incorrect manner.
SOAP and WS-* are great. You naysayers don’t recognize how far the specs and implementations have come.
Although i am not a fan of XML based web services, interoperability between Java and .Net is good news. Unfortunately Web services are here to stay, why not making developers life easier.
Edited 2005-11-14 16:53
Personally I like the new Microsun Winix, don’t you?
Are there any alternatives for interoperability between Java and .Net? CORBA and WS-* are obvioulsy the most common. What else is out there?
I ask because I’ve developed an alternative. I’m always curious to know what other people are doing in the area.