Re: The Two Way Web

Hi Fredrik,

Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> > I understand.  But I would argue that arbitrary RPC methods names have
> > no place being methods over HTTP.  It's an entirely different problem.
> 
> really? 

Yes!  8-)

> the strange thing here is that people are using
> this already, and it seems to work extremely well.  may-
> be they've missed your arguments?

Clearly!

> that's fine.  the question here is why you argue that nobody
> else should be allowed to use it?

Whoa, hold on there.  I'm not claiming people shouldn't be
*allowed* to use it.  That's not my style.

> face it: XML-RPC (and the SOAP superset) solve existing problems,
> are efficient enough for many real-life purposes, and are already
> widely deployed.  I've implemented these protocols for Python,
> and the mails I get give a very consistent message:
> 
>     1. people love it

People love HTTP more.

>     2. it works extremely well in cross-platform and
>        cross-language environments

As does HTTP.

>     3. people are smart enough to figure out when
>        to use it, and when to avoid it.

Maybe, but there are a lot of smart people using HTTP in a
harmful way today.

> (maybe you should give it a try?  you can find the Python version
> here: http://www.pythonware.com/products/xmlrpc )

I did RPC for 6 years (hand-marshalled/DCE/Corba/RMI).  I'm quite
familiar with how it works.  And I appreciate that XML-RPC/SOAP lets
me do RPC with less hassle and in a buzzword-compliant manner.  If
I needed to do RPC, I'd probably use it.  Luckily, since I figured
out what HTTP was all about, I've never needed to do RPC.

> > So, you're left with designing your own protocol if you've really
> > got a problem that can't reasonably be broken down to documents.
> > Or if you can break it down, use HTTP.  But please, no RPC.
> 
> too late.  real people are using this for real applications.
> 
> pissing on the parade won't change that.

And many (most, from what I've seen) of those real people are
actually *misusing* HTTP.  If it was a simple matter of them
shooting themselves in their own foot, then I wouldn't bother
speaking out.  But encouraging the proliferation of RPC over
the web is the quickest way I can think of to turn a loosely
coupled message-based medium, into a brittle, staticly-bound
one.

MB

Received on Monday, 13 March 2000 11:48:27 UTC