Re: SOAP and the Web architecture

Hugo Haas wrote:
> 
>...
> GET and POST, for HTML forms, address different problems.

Agreed.

>...
> The same way it makes sense to use POST sometimes instead of GET (and
> vice versa) for HTML forms, I think that the use of SOAP over HTTP
> POST sometimes makes sense, and sometimes does not.

Agreed.

> I will note that, depending on the kind of request which is done, it
> might not be achievable with GET even though it's idempotent, e.g. if
> the data structures are very complex.

Arguable. What spec. restricts the complexity of data sent through GET?
I agree that there are various social expectations that URIs be simple
and short and also that there may be some software that is poorly set up
to handle long complex ones. But I'm not sure how much of this problem
is really real and how much is merely expectation. Maybe if SOAP pushed
the limits a little we could find out what HTTP software is really
broken and fix it.

Anyhow, I would be satisfied if SOAP allows me to access simple web
services with simple parameters in a simple way (i.e. through a URI) and
if I need to deal with complex data I'll move on to more complex
solutions. Most idempotent web services will have short, simple
parameters just as most idempotent web sites do.
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Received on Monday, 27 August 2001 23:29:23 UTC