Thursday, May 02, 2002

gnat's Journal: "SOAP is just RPC with a ton of hype mixed in."   Umm.. sorry Nat, SOAP is not just RPC.  SOAP can be used to implement RPC over the Web, but that's not it's only (or best) use.  8:40:12 PM

Simon: "My proposal doesn't modify HTTP at all.... [Snell's Blog] There isn't a single HTTP stack out there that will know what to do with INVOKE. This negates 99% of the reasons to use HTTP."  Likewise, there isn't a single HTTP stack out there that will know what to do with a SOAP message without additional software to tell it what to do.  INVOKE support could easily be added to SOAP HTTP listeners that plug into the various HTTP stacks (if the HTTP stack is properly written that is)-- like I said, it's no different than using WebDAV. 8:34:10 PM

Simon Fell > Its just code: "If its going to take modifying HTTP to use it with SOAP, then it seems completely pointless to use HTTP at all, its hardly an ideal transport for SOAP to begin with."  My proposal doesn't modify HTTP at all.  It simply makes use of functionality already built into HTTP. It does, in fact, leverage the same basic mechanism that WebDAV uses to extend HTTP.  It does, in fact, represent a far more appropriate use of HTTP than the existing SOAP over HTTP implementation uses.  From the HTTP 1.1 specification "The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. It is a generic, stateless, protocol which can be used for many tasks beyond its use for hypertext, such as name servers and distributed object management systems, through extension of its request methods, error codes and headers. A feature of HTTP is the typing and negotiation of data representation, allowing systems to be built independently of the data being transferred. " 6:05:41 PM

A Proposed Alternative SOAP over HTTP binding.  5:58:50 PM

News.com: IBM has proposed a modification to the WS-I charter that would allow Sun to become a key board member if the rest of the WS-I membership agrees.  It is not clear yet if the rest of the WS-I board will accept or reject IBM's proposal. 3:59:29 PM

I've organized some thoughts on the use of HTTP POST and GET with SOAP.  After going back to the HTTP specification, I came up with a somewhat surprising (to me) conclusion:  for SOAP RPC, what we need is a new HTTP Operation called INVOKE.  Read this for details. Bottom line: SOAP RPC SHOULD NOT USE HTTP POST. 3:52:02 PM

HA! I was just listening to the radio when a commercial came on.  It was for the local junior college.  They were talking about how you could become a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer.  Then they equated that as the "first step to millionaire-hood" 12:50:02 PM

I'm working on the second edition of my book.  Lots of changes I want to make.  Please send me your suggestions. 10:29:13 AM