Re: Web RPCs Considered Harmful

> That wasn't the issue issue that started the thread though.  The issue
> that started this was the active promotion of non-standard APIs and
> multiple implementations of those APIs.  At this point, the currently
> expected (intended, even, by some) usage of RPC-ish protocols is for
> one-off implementations.  The RPC-ish protocols are intended to be an

I disagree with this assertion. I'm not in the least interested
in one-off implementations. I am extremely interested in allowing
programatic access to my services, and to do so without either
a) dragging in the weight of something like CORBA or b)
implementing my own encoding scheme. I suspect that many
others come to this topic with a similar perspctive.

I believe that to focus on an API is a mistake. It's what's on the
wire which counts. That's what needs to be standardized.

> enabling tool for developers of all sizes to promote their
> applications using a standard, decidedly RPC-ish, protocol.  In _that_
> context, the _usage_ of RPC-ish encoding protocols is of utmost
> significance.

Are you saying that the very benefit that these web RPC type
technologies bring (lower barrier to the deployment of programatic
interfaces to services) is their downfall ? (Because they allow
inexperienced folk to design bad interfaces and then propagate
their use ?).  I guess I can see the point, but...so we should ban
the development of tools like VisualBasic then too because they
make it easy for unworthy amateur programmers to write poor code ?

Received on Tuesday, 16 May 2000 12:37:50 UTC