Slashdot Mirror


Philosophical Split Hurts Web Services Adoption

Avidwriter writes "'There is a serious split in Web services implementation philosophy that is threatening to stall the benefits of the technology to businesses and consumers,' says this Devchannel story. 'The WSDL 1.1 specification allows programmers to choose between remote procedure call (RPC) style and document-style Web services. The decision is not an arbitrary one, as it has ramifications for both message structure and more importantly the interoperability of Web services...'"

25 comments

  1. Frosty First Post Piss!!! I DID IT!!!!!! by sithkhan · · Score: -1

    Angry Dragon
    Immediately after you blow your load in a girl's mouth, smack the back of her head and make it come out her nose. When she gets up she'll look like an angry dragon.

    Arabian Goggles
    A "seldom-seen" maneuver when you put your testicles over her eye sockets while getting head. (Picture it: ass on forehead) It may be anatomically impossible, but what the fuck else is new.

    The Bait N' Tackle
    The sailors used this one in the old Navy days. Before you go off for a long, lonely voyage, get yourself a tall jar and fill it completely with earthworms. When you get lonely, open the jar and fuck away. The earthworms will provide some slithery stimulation, and your protein load will keep them nicely fed. Gone fishing!

    Ballsacking
    Takes some luck of the gene pool, but if you're able to do it, always great fun. While you are straddling her, take your nutsack and spread it out over her face like pizza dough.

    Bear Claw
    A synonym for extremely large pussy lips.

    Beef Curtain
    The shanked out remains of the labia after being stretched like Play-Doh from an hour or so of jimmy-jam.

    Beer Dick
    This is what most guys get after a good night of drinking. They tend to fuck anything with a pussy while experiencing beer dick.

    Blumpy
    You need to find a real tramp to do this right. It involves having her sucking you off while you are on the shitter.

    Boston Steamer
    The act of ending a relationship by depositing a steaming pile of feces on the back of a sleeping lover after a night of passion followed by a hasty departure.

    Brazilian Flapjack
    The act of Blowing one's love sauce on their partners sternum and letting her bake in the sun. The partner will then return later and peel off the cumjack and feed it to the craving slut.

    The Bronco
    You start by going doggy style and then just when she is really enjoying it, you grab her tits as tight as possible and yell another girls name. This gives you the feeling of riding a wild bronco as she desperately tries to buck you off.

    Brown Bagging It
    Sometimes you meet a girl with a body like there's no tomorrow but a face like a mangy dog. Don't let that body go to waste and let her hideousness stop you from fucking her though. Just draw the smiley face on a brown paper bag, place it over her head, and fuck away while keeping your composure and piece of mind.

    Brown Necktie
    You're about halfway through ass-wrecking a chick, and instead of filling up her keister with your demonseed, you pull out and proceed to tittie fuck her, leaving a brown streak between the funbags.

    Brunski
    When a man puts his face between a woman's breasts and quickly moves his head back and forth while saying "Brunski" in a very drawn out and exaggerated manner. (There are many other variant names.)

    The Bullwinkle
    The sign given to a friend in hiding while doggie styling' some chick. It is performed by placing both hands over the head, with palms facing out and waving wildly. Can be supplemented by shouting "Hey Rocky." (Make sure to use appropriate Bullwinkle voice tone.)

    Butter Face
    When you see a chick with an awesome body, "but her face", is nasty.

    Cajun Hot Stick
    The act in which the cock is taken out of her pooper and slathered in the pool of dip spit in the small of her back and then re-inserted.

    Christmas Turkey Carver
    The act of sitting carefully behind your prone partner, inserting three fingers in her vagina, one in her ass, and voraciously pumping your digits in and out, maintaining a perfect L-bend at the elbow, and using only your rotator cuff as a power pivot

    The Canine Special
    Liberally apply peanut butter to your dick and call over the family dog. Lick Ubu lick. Good Dog. Arf!

    The Carpet Cleaner
    While banging a girl doggy style, tie her arms behind her back, lift up her hips, and run around the room pushing her face first across the carpet. Not recommended with large women.

    The Chili Dog
    When you t

    --

    is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
  2. Of course it's a problem... by mike_sucks · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... RPC-style "web" services such as SOAP and XML-RPC should not be an option. They're contrary to the architecture to the Web. If anything, they should be called RPC over HTTP or something similar, because that is all they have in common with the Web.

    If you want to do a real Web service, use REST.

    --
    -- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
    1. Re:Of course it's a problem... by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1
      RPC.

      Always sucked.

      Fits into a model of security where the 'remote' is a part of your "Trusted Computing Base."

      Flawed, almost all-around.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    2. Re:Of course it's a problem... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      SOAP, particularly as it matures into 1.2, is moving away from the RPC model to a most REST model. So while your point is good, don't paint SOAP with that brush.

    3. Re:Of course it's a problem... by NullStr · · Score: 1

      Precisely. HTTP is simply a convenient protocol to use, because firewalls almost certainly allow it through. Single-click generation of RPC-style "WebServices" apps looks impressive at conferences, but perhaps just saves the developer a bunch of keystrokes.

      At DevWeek London *February 2002* Don Box spoke of this RPC-vs-Document conflict, coming out (IIRC) in favour of the Document ("messaging") model.

      I'm surprised if the issue really not been largely resolved since then.

  3. Little summary and comment by jsse · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The author stated his stance in the very first paragraph:

    For example, it is incorrect to assume that a request-response programming model dictates an RPC-style message format. The Document style can also be used for request-response communication.

    And in this regard, he chose his side:

    In this case, Microsoft is right. Document/literal Web services are a better choice for data interoperability. While focusing on JAX-RPC instead of JAXM is in line with Sun's attempt to simplify Java development, it's the wrong approach for Web services.

    Then the followings are mainly pointing out the flaws in Apache Axis.

    First of all, I can see in his article what Axis does wrong. However, I don't see how Microsoft's way - Document/literal Web services - could solve the problem.

    I've mixed feeling about his arguments. First I do think the present RPC implemention in WSDL is getting out of hand(chaotic and complicated), but if we could only do document style transfer as he said the Microsoft's way, why the hell should we consider adopting WS in the first place? Isn't what SUN and Apache(and IBM, he didn't mention) does exactly what we really need for interoperative protocols?

    To put it simpler, in the pure document transfer model, the processing logics will lie in the senders and receivers. That is defeating the major merit of WS on interoperability, where the processing logics are not hard-coded into one framework.

    The author is a scientist in DOD and he really has some insight in WSDL, but if WSDL is really implemented in Microsoft's way then many wouldn't even consider adopting WS in the first place.

    1. Re:Little summary and comment by etcshadow · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also, how seriously are we supposed to consider an article about the future of web technologies when the guy can't (sic) even figure out how to properly escape his apostrohpes.

      I mean really!

      No, joking aside, its remarkable the extent to which this is all just unmitigated editorializing without the slightest good reasoning to back it up. Not to mention that I pretty strongly disagree with the notion that "RPC is bad". If anything, I'd actually go as far as to say that I think that SOAP is far too often overkill. If XML-RPC gets the job done, then why resort to all that heavy, unmanageable garbage?

      --
      :Wq
      Not an editor command: Wq
    2. Re:Little summary and comment by LarryRiedel · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think the author may be expressing, among other things, an idea like that it may be cleaner to implement an RPC style interaction model on top of a Document style interaction model than vice versa, to define a protocol in terms of message formats than in terms of an API, to implement a blocking API on top of a non-blocking API than vice versa. Not a statement of fact so much as rejecting a choice between A or B in favor of thinking about what will be the best way to get A and B.

      Larry

    3. Re:Little summary and comment by aminorex · · Score: 1

      ...to implement a blocking API on top of a non-blocking API...

      Well, you can't use HTTP then. It's pure request-response.
      (Unless you do things that are frankly impractical.)

      If you implement RPC over REST, you're implementing
      a blocking protocol over a non-blocking protocol over
      a blocking protocol. Frankly, stupid.

      But then RPCs always were stupid. There are no "calls"
      in reality, only events.

      --
      -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
    4. Re:Little summary and comment by KILNA · · Score: 1

      If it's "it is", it's "it's" not "its". I used to confuse them as well, but I couldn't resist commenting on the comment complaining about apostrophe's.



      Yes, that last apostrophe was meant to fuck with you.

      --
      Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
  4. DOD project? by djmitche · · Score: 2, Funny

    Did anyone catch the (hard-to-miss) part about the DOD project that's trying to fit terrorists into some ontology that also includes "plants" and "animals"? That's so insane, I don't know whether to laugh or cry..

    P.S. Yes, I read the article. Sorry. (slinks away in shame)

    1. Re:DOD project? by one9nine · · Score: 1
      Or how about the fact that according to the ontology , humans have revolted against our phylum oppressors and declared independence! We're no longer animals, people!

      Looks like we need a new poll to pick our new phylum name. CowboyNeilia perhaps?

    2. Re:DOD project? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah and he puts Terrorists and Anarchists on the same level in has "class hierarchy".

      What a retard.

      I really don't even understand the article, what difference does it make how the data is structured?

      Right now I'm writing a daemon that does stuff and reports its status in response to XML-RPC queries, various integers, counters and so forth. Somebody tell me how this article will make my life easier or my program better or whatever.

    3. Re:DOD project? by dash2 · · Score: 1
      Yeah, and he opposed "disputant" to "creator". But don't forget, kids: we are not in the least afraid of ruins.

      :-)

    4. Re:DOD project? by aminorex · · Score: 1

      Well, um, it's a *Miltonian* ontology.

      --
      -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
    5. Re:DOD project? by dash2 · · Score: 1
      It seems the philosophical problems of the DOD go deeper than document vs. RPC-centric web services:



      4.1 heroes
      4.1.1 romantic heroes
      4.1.1.1 Osama bin Laden
      4.1.1.2 Satan

  5. Biased examples -- worthless article by plsuh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Mr. Daconta has chosen a very contrived example to support his argument. A tree-structured taxonomy fits very nicely into a DOM-style response, but fits poorly into a Hashmap. Ergo, since his document-style request returns a DOM and his RPC-style request returns a Hashmap, the Document-style request is always superior. This is complete bullshit. Either way could be easier to implement and result in a more natural response, depending on the situation.

    A Hashmap is a lousy and unnatural way of representing a tree structure in the first place. Why would sending it over a wire in response to a SOAP call result in any less awkwardness at the other end? What if the taxonomy was represented as vectors and sub-vectors? This would allow a much more natural representation, and would result in a much clearer output in response to a SOAP call.

    What if the underlying structure was not hierarchical, but was instead a bi-directional circular linked list? Expressing this in a DOM object is possible, but it's ugly and does not flow naturally.

    Another thing to notice is how much code was written for the two examples. The RPC-style code is a mere 45 lines total. The Document-style code is shows 130 lines, but notes that many more lines were omitted. At 7 lines per omitted item from class7 to class21, that's another 105 lines, for a total of 235 lines. If you're going to put 5 times as much effort into the result, it's not surprising that you get back a much cleaner response.

    Daconta's article should be moderated as "-1 Troll" IMNSHO.

    --Paul

  6. Old news - the split has moved by Kopretinka · · Score: 3, Insightful
    WSDL 1.1 is an old specification and the split is just as old and mostly solved by general adoption of the document/literal (as opposed to RPC/encoded) approach.

    Now the pressing question seems to be the RESTfulness or not of Web Services. See a related Mark Baker's blog entry for illustration.

    --
    Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
    1. Re:Old news - the split has moved by aminorex · · Score: 1

      That's a cute way to avoid a debate you might lose.
      Howerver, it's a bit bald-faced:

      Even WSDL 1.1 hasn't been adopted by the overwheleming
      majority of web services, Monkey-boy's malapropisms
      notwithstanding.

      --
      -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
    2. Re:Old news - the split has moved by Kopretinka · · Score: 1

      Personally, I had the feeling that WSDL 1.1 was, in fact, adopted by the overwhelming majority of web services (HTTP/HTML services excluding). Are you aware of other interface definition language being more successful than WSDL 1.1 or are you just stating that majority of web services does without interface definition?

      --
      Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
    3. Re:Old news - the split has moved by aminorex · · Score: 1

      Without a WSDL interface definition, certainly.
      The lack of a WSDL definition does not make a
      thing undefined, or bereft of definition.

      --
      -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
    4. Re:Old news - the split has moved by Kopretinka · · Score: 1

      I agree, but most SOAP toolkits I know base most of their functionality off WSDL - generating client-side proxies, serialization and deserialization etc. I don't believe the majority of web services to work on the XML level.

      --
      Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
    5. Re:Old news - the split has moved by distobj · · Score: 1

      Whatever. I'm right, because I've written code that does what Web services people say is impossible. It's not like I'm going to wake up and realize that I didn't write that code.

      I've also spent much of the past 5 years studying very large scale systems in extreme detail. Before that, I was a CORBA wiz, so I'm well aware of pros and cons of both architectural styles.

      I choose REST because it's superior to Web services in practically every way that is important to large scale systems. Moreover, I reject Web services, because it fails to pass the single most critical litmus test for large scale systems; it's not late bound (i.e. integration complexity is necessarily worse than O(N)).

  7. GNAA - LAST POST - DO NOT POST AFTER THIS POST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Join GNAA Today! GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which
    gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

    Are you GAY?
    Are you a NIGGER?
    Are you a GAY NIGGER?

    If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
    Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
    GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America. You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

    Why not? It's quick and easy - only 2 simple steps!

    First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

    Second, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
    Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

    If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.

    If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.



    This post brought to you by a proud member of GNAA
    ________________________________________________
    | ______________________________________._a,____ |
    | _______a_._______a_______aj#0s_____aWY!400.___ |
    | __ad#7!!*P____a.d#0a____#!-_#0i___.#!__W#0#___ |
    | _j#'_.00#,___4#dP_"#,__j#,__0#Wi___*00P!_"#L,_ |
    | _"#ga#9!01___"#01__40,_"4Lj#!_4#g_________"01_ |
    | ________"#,___*@`__-N#____`___-!^_____________ |
    | _________#1__________?________________________ |
    | _________j1___________________________________ |
    | ____a,___jk_ GAY_NIGGER_ASSOCIATION_OF_AMERICA_|
    | ____!4yaa#l___________________________________ |
    | ______-"!^____________________________________ |
    ` _______________________________________________'

  8. Interesting reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0