SOAP Problems

Python XML SIG <xml-sig@python.org>

Problems with SOAP?    (1807)

Growing consensus that it's no good    (1811)

References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 12, 2002)

Too big    (2271)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

"Neither fish nor fowl"    (2280)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002), paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Hard to implement interoperably    (2289)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002), paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002), uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 13, 2002)

soapbuilders community disagrees    (2653)

References: rsalz@zolera.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Valid?    (2705)

Uche's out-of-box experience    (2710)

Uche couldn't get SOAP packages working out-of-the-box with well-known SOAP services.
References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Still a new spec    (2740)

References: rsalz@zolera.com (Feb 14, 2002)

Won't succeed on Internet    (2301)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Not human readable    (2306)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Security issues    (2329)

Mapping XML elements to language types in the message is bad    (2363)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

RPC tunnels over firewalls    (2371)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Too many optional features    (2336)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Makes no statement about underlying protocol    (2348)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Nothing new to contribute    (2531)

Just another RPC (except with hierarchically extensible headers).
References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Conflates transport and payload details    (2541)

References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Data types are hacks    (2550)

References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Inefficient    (2558)

References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 13, 2002)

XML Schema can't describe SOAP RPC Encoding    (3307)

References: rsalz@zolera.com (Feb 15, 2002)

References?    (2565)

Clay Shirky's article    (2570)

References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 13, 2002)

SOAP != Web Services    (2662)

References: rsalz@zolera.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Alternatives?    (1956)

XML-RPC    (1836)

References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 12, 2002)

Satisifies 80/20 rule    (1844)

References: veillard@redhat.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Easy to use from many languages    (2134)

Including statically typed languages like C. This is true of SOAP as well.
References: brian@sweetapp.com (Feb 13, 2002), rsalz@zolera.com (Feb 13, 2002)

ASCII only    (1860)

References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 13, 2002), paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

True?    (1880)

XML-RPC can contain anything that XML can    (1886)

References: frederik@pythonware.com (Feb 13, 2002)

No rigorous spec, so impossible to know    (1916)

References: rsalz@zolera.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Only valid type for string element is ASCII    (1928)

References: martin@v.loewis.de (Feb 13, 2002)

Spec seems to imply that any valid XML is okay for strings    (1948)

References: fredrik@pythonware.com (Feb 13, 2002)

ASCII requirement widely ignored    (2126)

References: brian@sweetapp.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Iain Colledge's proposed Unicode enhancement    (1939)

References: brian@sweetapp.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Sketchy datatyping    (1864)

References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Relevant?    (1896)

Outside of 80 percent rule    (1901)

Flexible datatypes key to solving complex problems using RPC    (1908)

References: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com (Feb 13, 2002)

No support for None    (1873)

References: akuchlin@mems-exchange.org (Feb 13, 2002)

Silly definition of float    (1969)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Bloated to the point of obfuscation    (1976)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

No way of inlining XML    (1983)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Can't cache calls without side effects    (2005)

This is a scaling issue.
References: veillard@redhat.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Scaling issue?    (2019)

Want to scale, don't use RPC    (2025)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

What is meant by "RPC?"    (2033)

References: rsalz@zolera.com (Feb 13, 2002)

Roy Fielding's definition    (2041)

"What distinguishes RPC from other forms of network-based application communication is the notion of invoking a procedure on the remote machine, wherein the protocol identifies the procedure and passes it a fixed set of parameters, and then waits for the answer to be supplied within a return message using the same interface. Remote method invocation (RMI) is similar, except that the procedure is identified as an {object, method} tuple rather than a service procedure."
References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Network interactions as procedure calls    (2052)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Great for ease-of-use    (2066)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

Scaling problems    (2071)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

XPC    (1995)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

REST    (2081)

References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002), paul@prescod.net (Feb 14, 2002)

Not much harder than XML-RPC    (2090)

References: frederik@pythonware.com (Feb 13, 2002)

API is on the wire    (2099)

Client doesn't even need thin interface layer.
References: paul@prescod.net (Feb 13, 2002)

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