Home Original page

SOAP frustrations

Christopher Browne cbbrowne at acm.org
Fri Oct 18 13:42:16 EDT 2002 
After takin a swig o' grog, "Robert Oschler" <Oschler at earthlink.net> belched out...:
> "Christopher Browne" <cbbrowne at acm.org> wrote in message
> news:aomqcm$o4u41$3 at ID-125932.news.dfncis.de...
>> Note that I've books in print that demonstrate the use of both CORBA
>> and SOAP using Python; while "future royalties" commend the idea of my
>> commending interest in SOAP, I certainly prefer CORBA...
>
> What is the best book you have out for an advanced level programmer
> (for SOAP)?

/I/ have only one; see the URL below.

I have looked at many of them, and there is /considerable/ variation
in the nature of the material they cover.

My book has the most detailed presentation (plug! plug!  I am not
unbiased :-)) that I am aware of about the use of SOAP::Lite, so if
you're into Perl, which is almost certainly the best "SOAP for
scripting languages" implementation, I would /strongly/ commend it.
(Irrespective of my bias as author.)  It has decent coverage of Axis
(the Apache project's Java-based imp), and says more about Python
SOAPs than any other book I am aware of.  Unfortunately, in that
regard, it's arguably a little obsolete already, as it has
considerable discussion of ZSI, which is no longer being worked on.

A lot of the books on the market on the subject have been rushed into
place, and spend a whole lot more time discussing XML standardsthan
they do getting into the "meat" of how to do sophisticated things with
SOAP.  As such, /they suck/, and you'll probably find little point in
buying them.

In the "MSFT/Java-frameworked" approaches, WSDL (analagous to CORBA
IDL) is a /totally vital/ piece, whereas in implementations of SOAP
for Python, Perl, Ruby, and such, WSDL is virtually
irrelevant/useless.  That's almost certainly the most vital thing that
determines which "direction" you'd want to take:

- /My/ operating (and authoring) assumption is normally that WSDL is
  useless, because SOAP::Lite and SOAP.py and SOAP4r make minimal if
  any use of it.

- Someone talking about .NET-based SOAP will make the exact opposite
  assumption, that WSDL is pervasive, ubiquitous, and mandatory in order
  to make the slightest use of SOAP.

Those are totally divergent (though, in their respective contexts,
legitimate) perspectives, and may be helpful in determining what
"literary" direction to take.  Most books take the "WSDL-is-pervasive"
perspective, though not usually consciously.

If what you want is to do "sophisticated SOAP stuff" in Python, I'm
not sure what your best choice is.  The implementations suck fairly
badly, and supporting companies have gone out of business, so that
there's little code worth documenting.  My book probably has the most
relevant Python coverage, but there's some risk that you'll feel
teased, as it may not get as 'advanced' as you want.  On the other
hand, since the implementations aren't likely to be as 'advanced as
you want,' there is no hope of there being a /better/ option.
-- 
(concatenate 'string "chris" "@cbbrowne.com")
http://cbbrowne.com/info/soap.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #169. "If I  have massive computer systems,
I will  take at  least as  many precautions as   a small  business and
include things such as virus-scans and firewalls."
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/>
More information about the Python-list mailing list