3 ms·

Seriously? I'm actually surprised that anyone would find SOAP complex. I see it as incredibly simplistic to implement. Are you really saying you avoid web servi

Seriously? I'm actually surprised that anyone would find SOAP complex. I see it as incredibly simplistic to implement. Are you really saying you avoid web services because you don't understand SOAP? I've done them in both .NET and Java many times.

jan_g 16y ago
Yes, seriously. Life is complex as it is and that is doubly true for programmer. If you're doubting my ability to understand the specs and various implementations, then I must disappoint you. I understand them well enough, it's just pointless to spend inordinate amounts of time to make communication between implementations work.
foamdino 16y ago
It's almost as if the vendors of such awesome technology as the .Net stack and the wonderful world of Java app servers was trying to get you to buy some brain-dead tools to manage what should be as simple http get/post The only useful thing SOAP has done for the entire development community is to give lead developers or tech managers making hiring decisions a huge red-flag. As soon as anyone mentions SOAP with enthusiasm (instead of the disgust it deserves), you know it's 'no-hire'
- GFischer 16y ago
  I've used web services several times, but in the "serialized objects" style, and it worked. The alternatives were either that or a custom pipe-separated format. I'll take serialized objects over XML all day. Prior to this discussion, I wasn't aware of JSON on REST, I guess I should catch up a bit- I live in an awful legacy-app development world, which we need to expose on a crumbling tower of VB6 and .NET apps that interact with it externally - VB6 is the "new" part btw, the old part is an old SUN technology called FORTE 4GL UDS.
andrewf 16y ago
Have you had different SOAP stacks talking to each other? The case of having identical SOAP implementations at either end (eg .NET 2.0 <--> .NET 2.0, Java w/ Axis 1.4 <--> Java w/ Axis 1.4) is the one scenario where SOAP works as you'd hope.
- mainguy 16y ago
  Yeah, that's really the only time it works. The problem is, for 10 years vendors have been crowing about how it enabled .net to talk to java to talk to Cobol (or whatever) and that's just plain false. I've been in multiple shops where we established it was easier to write custom wire protocols than it was to try and get the various SOAP providers to talk to each other... e.g. Like Biz-talk... what a joke... Works great as an enterprise integration tool as long as your entire enterprise is running the same version of windows... and start drinking heavily now if you happen to have mainframes or -nix machines, cause you'll waste gob's-o-cash trying to get these things all hooked together.

jan_g 16y ago

Yes, seriously. Life is complex as it is and that is doubly true for programmer. If you're doubting my ability to understand the specs and various implementations, then I must disappoint you. I understand them well enough, it's just pointless to spend inordinate amounts of time to make communication between implementations work.

foamdino 16y ago

It's almost as if the vendors of such awesome technology as the .Net stack and the wonderful world of Java app servers was trying to get you to buy some brain-dead tools to manage what should be as simple http get/post The only useful thing SOAP has done for the entire development community is to give lead developers or tech managers making hiring decisions a huge red-flag. As soon as anyone mentions SOAP with enthusiasm (instead of the disgust it deserves), you know it's 'no-hire'

GFischer 16y ago
I've used web services several times, but in the "serialized objects" style, and it worked. The alternatives were either that or a custom pipe-separated format. I'll take serialized objects over XML all day. Prior to this discussion, I wasn't aware of JSON on REST, I guess I should catch up a bit- I live in an awful legacy-app development world, which we need to expose on a crumbling tower of VB6 and .NET apps that interact with it externally - VB6 is the "new" part btw, the old part is an old SUN technology called FORTE 4GL UDS.

andrewf 16y ago

Have you had different SOAP stacks talking to each other? The case of having identical SOAP implementations at either end (eg .NET 2.0 <--> .NET 2.0, Java w/ Axis 1.4 <--> Java w/ Axis 1.4) is the one scenario where SOAP works as you'd hope.

mainguy 16y ago
Yeah, that's really the only time it works. The problem is, for 10 years vendors have been crowing about how it enabled .net to talk to java to talk to Cobol (or whatever) and that's just plain false. I've been in multiple shops where we established it was easier to write custom wire protocols than it was to try and get the various SOAP providers to talk to each other... e.g. Like Biz-talk... what a joke... Works great as an enterprise integration tool as long as your entire enterprise is running the same version of windows... and start drinking heavily now if you happen to have mainframes or -nix machines, cause you'll waste gob's-o-cash trying to get these things all hooked together.