In order to get the well written SOAP interface, it helps to have the right tools and be used to using them. I think that increases the barrier to entry on usin

In order to get the well written SOAP interface, it helps to have the right tools and be used to using them. I think that increases the barrier to entry on using SOAP, which leads to the idea that SOAP is terrible and crufty compared to REST. I learned SOAP relatively recently, but well after it was a fad. Today, my experience would be like yours if I had to make a SOAP service with just a WSDL. But when I started out? It would take a longer for me to wrap my head around all of it. I can't imagine how confusing it would be if I had to do it all without the benefit of working on a team whose focus is a SOAP-based product. I dunno if I would know where to begin. Compare that to REST. Even if you know next-to-nothing to start, you can do a basic REST tutorial for just about any stack in an hour, and get a basic implementation of an API up in an afternoon.