14 posts tagged “soap”
Simple Object Access Protocol. It wasn't very simple.
2013
What information do you feel is most valuable when integrating a Web API (REST or SOAP)?
- A really good API explorer
- Comprehensive documentation of the response format, including what happens if certain fields are missing (empty string, null value, missing key?)
- Comprehensive documentation of the available request parameters, including allowed values
- What are the rate limits?
- What is returned if there is an error?
What is a good, simple SaaS tool for testing SOAP calls?
I doubt you’ll find one. The words “Simple” and “SOAP” don’t deserve to appear in the same sentence, and SOAP is massively unfashionable these days (for good reason) so you’re unlikely to find any modern SaaS companies developing tools for it.
[... 58 words]2008
Explaining REST to Damien Katz. I didn’t know that it was Mark Baker back in 2002 who first pointed out that SOAP was flawed because it ignored the architecture of the Web as defined by Roy Fielding’s Ph.D thesis.
Multi-Inflection-Point Alert. Dammit, Tim, stop giving away our competitive advantages!
Google AJAX Search API: Flash and Server Side Access. Over a year after Google shot down their SOAP Search API, they’ve quietly released a JSON based one under the guise of supporting “Flash and other non JavaScript environments”. Comes with the strange requirement that an HTTP referer be sent with every request; the API key is optional.
2007
WS-dämmerung. Tim Bray collects the latest round of WS-* repenting, which saves me from linking to them individually.
Web Services based on SOAP and WSDL are "Web" in name only. In fact, they are a hostile overlay of the Web based on traditional enterprise middleware architectural styles that has fallen far short of expectations over the past decade.
— Nick Gall, VP Gartner
2006
Why JSON isn’t just for JavaScript
Dave Winer’s discovery of JSON (and shock that “it’s not even XML”) has triggered an interesting discussion thread, on his blog and elsewhere. Plenty of people have re-assured him (and themselves) that it’s only used for JavaScript—it’s convenient in the browser but irrelevant elsewhere.
[... 787 words]2003
When to put the web into Web Services. aka “What’s SOAP actually useful for?”
PHP SOAP Documentation
Finally some good documentation on using SOAP with PHP: PEAR::SOAP Client Fast Start and Extending PEAR::SOAP WSDL, both from the excellent phpPatterns.
Lively discussion on SOAP
If you get the basic idea of web services but are still looking to get your head around SOAP (I know I am) the lively discussion currently taking place in Sam Ruby’s comment section looks like a great place to start.
2002
The Two Way Web
Dave Winer: The Two Way Web. The Two-Way-Web is a vision for the Web as an easy writing and publishing environment
. This is an old essay from March 2001 (I only found it today) which describes a vision of a web where content can be quickly and easily edited through a variety of tools, which communicate with content management systems using XML-RPC and SOAP. This is all stuff I’ve been thinking about recently, so it looks like I’m only a year and a half behind Dave ;)
XML request object
Using the XML HTTP Request object (via techno weenie) is an excellent tutorial covering remote XML loading capabilities in both IE and Mozilla, along with instructions on how to make SOAP requests using this technology.