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Are Web Services too confusing?
In an article on ZDNet, Corporate Express, a company described as one that "should be a Web Services poster child". Instead, "Instead of experimenting with the latest capabilities, Corporate Express is sticking with the most basic communication and data-formatting Web services standards."
From the article:Miller's decision underscores the confusion about Web services, a dizzying number of technical specifications for making programs exchange data over the Internet. Web services specifications are being developed in different standards bodies without a unifying authority. Without clear direction on standards, the payoff of the massive industry bet on Web services could be delayed--or derailed--because customers are sitting on the sidelines of a politicized and contentious standards process. This is not the first time this argument has been leveled at the Web services community--Amazon was recently speaking at a Redmond .NET User's Group, and stated that of the two services they provide, one SOAP-based and the other more REST-based (as in, plain XML over HTTP), the REST-based stack was by far and away the more popular of the two.
Is the Web services stack too complex? Are TSS.NET readers concerned about the "bewildering" or "dizzying" array of Web services specifications being released into the community, over the last 18 months and in the years to come?
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Message #126995
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Too complex
Unfortunately, my dear friend Ted, the WS-stack is being developed to please a well oiled machinery called BizTalk Server and the MS BizNet, not the pedestrian world who cries for simple messaging instead of complex orchestration.
We understand that BTS is a great product aimed to satisfy the hungriest of the beasts in the corporate jungle, but 90% of little fish in the pond don't need such a locomotive engine to pull a one-horse chariot.
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Message #127000
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Too complex
Unfortunately, my dear friend Ted, the WS-stack is being developed to please a well oiled machinery called BizTalk Server and the MS BizNet, not the pedestrian world who cries for simple messaging instead of complex orchestration. We understand that BTS is a great product aimed to satisfy the hungriest of the beasts in the corporate jungle, but 90% of little fish in the pond don't need such a locomotive engine to pull a one-horse chariot. I think the WS-* guys would agree with you, that simpler messaging systems, like RESTful systems, are easier to develop and maintain. But when you *need* the security and transactions and reliability of the implementations that conform to the WS-* stack, the platforms have to be able to deliver that without requiring you to build it yourself. That's what the WS-* guys are trying to establish and build for you.
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Message #127065
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Too complex
What is missing in the discourse of ws-* specs are what is and is not needed to leverage webservices. For example, i am doing quite a bit with webservices and i am leveraging some of the ws-* specs; however, i had to wade upstream at the beginning in order to understand what was going on so that I could make a decision. It would be nice to have a "Webservices Manisfesto" that provided a matrix of when to use what and in what situations...hey Ted an article idea....
-Mathew Nolton
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Message #127117
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Are Web Services too confusing?
Also competing specifications like WS-Eventing (MSFT et al) and WS-Notifications (IBM et al) cause the most confusion. Exactly which one of them is going to be a de-facto standard for implementing call-back style notifications over web services? What should we use today?
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Message #127127
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Are Web Services too confusing?
Microsoft and IBM agreed on most everthing except for the messaging/eventing model. Why the diff? Is it that IBM has so much at stake with its existing Queuing model and wants to/must differentiate themselves? Has anyone looked at both and can provide any insight into which one is better?
-Mathew Nolton
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Message #127144
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Are Web Services too confusing?
I take a different view on this, because I really don't care all that much about the WS-* specs, all I care about is understanding what the WS-* specs do for me and having a tool that makes it painless to use them.
I think this is where has always Microsoft shined, think about COM+, Microsoft has made it easy to understand, use and it's going to get better.
I am sure Indigo will do the same.
As for the standards bodies and unifying authority stuff, that will always be the case and the only thing we can do as customers of (MS, IBM, BEA, SUN, Oracle) is push each vendor for interoperability (WS-I).
We cannot continue to innovate by consensus or we will never get anything done.
Regards,
Marlon Smith
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Message #127145
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IBM & Microsoft Specs
The problem with anything coming from IBM right now is exactly what you implied: it's hard to know how much of the proposal lends itself to openness and the greater good versus that which provides a a clear advantage for or preference to WebSphere and related technologies.
Whereas Microsoft over the years has been accused many times of pushing standards that further solidify its stranglehold on the desktop-based environment, IBM is now sort of finding its way into the same general suspicion on the server/middleware side. Microsoft has been relatively open in its approach (even working with platform competitors like BEA).
I don't really buy the argument that the WS-* work from Microsoft is all pitched to push BizTalk; I don't think BTS is enough of a player to warrant that. With that in mind, I have no doubt that the uptake of MS-sponsored specs would very quickly and easily find its way into their own messaging middleware. :-)
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Message #127341
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IBM & Microsoft Specs
I agree that biztalk is not a huge player in the market; however, it is an important product in the MS arsenal and is does make you wonder what is driving MS in their feature list. But I do agree with you that MS is being much more collaborative in their efforts then they (or any big player) has been in the past.
With that said, i firmly believe that security, routing, eventing, etc. are needed in the WS-I solution. So regardless of the driving force behind the MS machine, it is all good in the end.....now if only MS and IBM could agree on their messaging model ;)
-Mathew Nolton
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Message #127401
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Are Web Services too confusing?
I think the specs are absolutely too confusing - and I'm not talking about any issues that an unstable spec and vendor competing are causing. SOAP is starting to remind me of COM - getting code that used custom marshalling and handled all that wierd threading correctly to interoperate safely required a huge amount of knowledge; I'm sure each piece had a good reason for existing, but taken as a whole it's a confusing mess. The new WSE 2.0 stuff finally has some use; however the overall complexity is still huge - contrast that with other protocols such as OFX that get the job done without worrying about all that datatyping and 'routing in the message' stuff and you can get on with building things without worrying that you didn't read the spec far enough and are missing either an easier way to do things or are doing something that should be done in a different way. End of rant.
My vote: if it's an XML format that you cannot hope to create a message for using Notepad then it should be looked at very carefully :-)
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