When you’re through with this chapter, you’ll know not only how to use SOAP straight out of the box but also how to extend SOAP to support your diverse and changing needs. You’ll have also followed the development of a meaningful e-commerce Web service in Java.
Using the SOAP Protocol with Java
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I coauthored a book on this very topic:
Professional XML Web Services
http://www.markrichman.com/Publications.aspx
This’d be fine and dandy, but skatestown.com seems to be dead, at least for today. Any one know if it’s dead for good, or just a temporary thing?
For simple data types, I much prefer xml-rpc. Others prefer REST. I have yet to see a web service that actually required SOAP.
Agreed. XML-RPC is far more useful and productive than SOAP, IMHO.
SOAP supporters usually point to two things to justify its existence; it is the ‘officially supported standard’ and it allows the user to specify custom data-types.
Reality is usually only about 3 or 4 data-types are ever really needed in most situations. Moreover, trying to utilize SOAP in a minimalist or embedded environment is considerably more difficult than XML-RPC.
In my opinion, XML-RPC will be the eventual preferred method of most programmers, as it is much easier to implement and become productive rather than going through all the hoops that SOAP enforces.
There is definately room for both methods, but I would only use SOAP if forced to.
XML-RPC does the job the best way , it is small, fast and intuitive, and does not have the need to implement mangling WS-Security tech , you just overlap it to your own custom secure protocol , you do authentication and normal web programming and there it is , your secure web application in no time , without killing your brains with sh..ty technology
After trying the Apache Axis APIs and its tool wsdl2java, I must say using SOAP is very easy.
As the author says the difficult thing is to find the best way of designing your app instead of just how to design.
Others prefer REST
xml-rpc is an alternative to soap. REST however says that both tries to solve a problem that doesnt exist.
Read http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm if you’re into internet based applications. Actually it’s a good read for anyone.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that xml-rpc and SOAP try to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. There needs to be some standard for interlanguage RPC. xml-rpc and SOAP do this quite well.
There needs to be some standard for interlanguage RPC
I guess this is what corba was for, too. Even DCE IIRC. Probably Sun-rpc too.
WSs and common middleware have different facets of use, but this does not mean we could not use something already widely used such as ASN.1 for the serialization format, no?
I use it, but I must say it is an approach of people who don´t get a clue, besides the XML base, there is nothing Corba, RMI and others haven´t solved years ago much more elegantly.
Soap is a typical Microsoft technology, first they try to kill soap, then they don´t get a clue on how to do things (DCOM) then they take an existing elegant low footprint technology (XML-RPC) and add lots of bloat, and the outcome is another XML-RPC with lots of bloat
I meant Corba not Soap with the technology M$ tried to kill.