SOAP is ridiculously complex, which makes it annoying and slow. Rest has its own set of problems and annoyances, including lack of compatability with browser pl

SOAP is ridiculously complex, which makes it annoying and slow. Rest has its own set of problems and annoyances, including lack of compatability with browser plugins (because browsers don't expose the http codes), and the awkwardness of trying to fit everything into the verbs offered by http, and the fundamental lack of support for betching calls because the endpoint is the method, etc, etc. Rest was awesome when it was the alternative to SOAP, but now there are alternatives to both that are significantly better. My protocol of preference is JSON-RPC 2.0. Simple, fast, compatible, handles batching, fairly human readable but also quite compact.