distributed computing implementations

[Jp Calderone]

On Thu, Apr 03, 2003 at 11:49:05AM -0800, robin wrote:
> claird at lairds.com (Cameron Laird) wrote:
> 
> > SOAP and such are just concessions to commercial misunder-
> > standings about what business needs.
> 
> I would like to know more about what you mean by this.
> 
> Jp Calderone <exarkun at intarweb.us> wrote:
> 
> > Personally, I think SOAP is worth ignoring.  ;)  XML-RPC is what I would
> > choose if I were going for that sort of solution, too.
> 
> I'd like more details here too. Why ignore SOAP?

  It's XML-based.  This is a major design flaw for a wire protocol.  The
only reason XML-RPC gets off the hook here is that it was first (afaik.  And
if not, it's at least the most popular), and you're allowed to make a
mistake once >:)

  It's HTTP-based.  HTTP is almost sufficient for web pages (not if you want
really dynamic content though, then it pretty much sucks).  As an RPC
transport, it's a flop.  Luckily, I don't -think- SOAP is completely tied to
HTTP, it's just a too-commonly used transport.

  In addition to these two bad design choices, which probably could have
been worked around, it has a generally high per-message overhead (-even- for
XML).  Here's an example of a message, directly from the standards document:

    POST /StockQuote HTTP/1.1                                                                                                            
    Host: www.stockquoteserver.com                                                                                                       
    Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"                                                                                             
    Content-Length: nnnn                                                                                                                
    SOAPAction: "Some-URI"                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                
    <SOAP-ENV:Envelope                                                                                                                
      xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"                                                                       
      SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">                                                               
       <SOAP-ENV:Body>                                                                                                       
           <m:GetLastTradePrice xmlns:m="Some-URI">                                                                                      
               <symbol>DIS</symbol>                                                                                                    
           </m:GetLastTradePrice>                                                                                                        
       </SOAP-ENV:Body>                                                                                                                 
    </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>                                                                                                              


  This message is asking for the last price "DIS" traded at.  It is almost
2kB long.

  That's the short of it.

  Jp

-- 
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
home."
                -- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society
                   Convention, 1977
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