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XML Web Services: Means to an End
An anonymous reader writes "For the second day in a row at the XML Web Services One conference here, a keynote speaker got up and signaled the impending end to the Web services era, at least on a standards level. Don Box, an architect in Microsoft Corp.'s developer division told an audience of Web services conference attendees Wednesday: 'The end of the XML Web services era is near. I predict two years from now we won't have this conference.'"
He says that the era of producing the standards is coming to an end, not the usage of the services himself...
to quote:
Box said XML Web services are a means to an end. "We have to get the plumbing sorted out," he said. "We have a couple more years of plumbing work, but after that we move on to applications," he said. Box said the "protocol work is starting to wind down, the infrastructure is catching up with protocols and it's time to start thinking about applications."
(sound of crickets chirping)
Sometimes I guess it's not worth the effort to write up an actual article description and it's easier to just plagiarize the article itself...
But I digress.
The web services model looks like the Application Service Provider model of yesteryear. MS isn't stupid, but sometimes they are pointed in the wrong direction. The future isn't in remote computation (like Ellison's been trying to push since forever), but in more powerful personal computers and more computational power in every device and the technology to tie them all together. It's going to stop being the software makers that dictate the progress of technology and go back into the hardware makers' hands.
And who stands to benefit? Consulting shops that specialize in device integration.
I have been pwned because my
"protocol work is starting to wind down, the infrastructure is catching up with protocols and it's time to start thinking about applications."
... but suitable applications aren't that obvious ... or maybe I've missed the point.
;). Why change what already works?
This quote sums up Web Services for me. The infrastructure/concept is okay
A relative works for MS (partly promoting Web Services) and keeps telling me that we should consider creating Web Service applications and/or converting existing applications to Web Services. My standard answer is that we can't afford to run Microsoft products on remote servers, both practically and financially. But of course the real reason is that I don't want to
So, what they're saying is, they're giving up on the hype, because apparently none of us are falling for it?
:-). Good old hand-rolled MVC style models :-).
OK, bring on the next over-hyped technology. I'll just keep developing Web apps the same way I always have
still seem pretty solid to me
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
Is he predicting the end of web services, or the end of useless conferences?
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
The people who have to get disparate systems to speak are doing this now, sometimes without the aid of these standards.
To get single sign on to work for just one entity (one company) and tie applications hosted sometimes remotely, sometimes on the same box you have to start now, or you will be forever patching systems together in myriad different ways and protocols. XML does work.
How much do the SOAP standards and current XML parsers help when it comes to security? to formalizing a standard set of data types? to encapsulating query type data for different systems? not much...
I have found that using parsers from companies supposedly "moving awfully fast" in this arena is perilous at best, and at worst, simply impossible because they don't parse.
XML/SOAP is here to stay, and gaining ground as far as covering the necessary topics, but the business of getting work done will go on without the benefit of the standards.
Don says that two years from now XML Web Services One won't happen. He's right: I've been hearing that Web Services Edge", on both coasts, has already taken over. Why else would Jonathan Schwartz be keynoting for them? Sun sees that XML's the only onion in the Web Services stew too, but he wants to speak at a show that will last for 5-7 years, not die after 2.
XWT is the way to go these days. OS-agnostic, clear and simple separation of UI and business logic and totally, wholly extensible. I love this software.
Forgive me, but isn't calling Web Services an "era" rather overstating their importance? Certain parties, not only MS, have been pushing this idea for a few years now, but it's never really caught on, and for a very good reason: much of the development world has no use for them, gains no benefit from them, and so couldn't care less about them.
One might reasonably argue that the use of COM-related technologies was an "era" in the Microsoft development world, since they gained reasonably widespread usage in the industry and lasted a while. And yet now, as MS pushes their latest and greatest, we have former COM proponents such as Don Box coming out and saying (not just in this article, but all over the place) that COM was never really any good. I think that makes it quite clear how important, or otherwise, "keynote" speeches by Microsoft spin doctors -- and the subjects they discuss -- really are.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
End? I am still awaiting the beggining
1.4 is probably pretty fast. Earlier is slower.