What does it mean for MultiValue?This page contains follow-ups to the article : Web
Services and .NET (Part 1) Follow-up to: SOAP is a "standard"*
that almost everyone now follows... Follow-up to: You can setup any TCP socket* to read
and process SOAP requests… Follow-up to: … the .NET Framework*… Follow-up to: … other tools for developing
Web Services clients and/or servers without .NET. Examples* include… How "Standard" is "Standard"?When you use your browser to get a web page, there is an implied agreement between you and the web developer who built that web page. You agree to use a browser that renders HTML code if the web developer agrees to write code in HTML. HTML is a standard which is monitored by the W3C, and is currently at version 4.01, but browser developers can choose how they want to implement the standard and web site developers can choose which browsers they want to support. Of course the closer everyone follows the standard the more web sites can serve a more general audience. SOAP is also monitored by the W3C, and is currently at version 1.2. Some people call it a Microsoft protocol, and, while Microsoft did and does have a heavy hand in its development, it's important to note that as many as ten other companies collaborated with Microsoft to present SOAP to the W3C for further development. SOAP is evolving. Some sites implement Web Services using SOAP 1.1, others use 1.2. There's not much difference between them. Like HTML, there are also some subtle differences in how some sites implement their SOAP server code. The biggest differences that make standards not so standard are in areas where the standard doesn't restrict how specific data is represented. The net result, for example, is that without special hooks, a SOAP client written in Perl doesn't talk to a server written using Microsoft .NET tools. This isn't another "oh no, not Microsoft again" thing. Until the standards are more explicit, the poor developers in the field will just need to code for variations, much like HTML or JavaScript for browsers. These issues will be discussed in other articles as things to watch out for when implementing Web Services. SOAP is just a bunch of XML tags, so how does it work?The Web Services and .NET article says SOAP rides over HTTP but it can use any socket protocol. I was asked to explain more about how SOAP actually works, and while I'm at it, explain what a socket is. Fair enough… What are sockets?There is enough material here to warrant a separate article which explains sockets in lay terms. The following material follows-up using similar metaphors. Soap for people who don't do protocolsThis non-technical material was also broken into a separate article. A number of Web resources are available for developers who would like to learn more details about the SOAP protocol itself, or developing applications using SOAP. Some good books are also available in your local bookstore or through Amazon.com. Check the publication date of any book you read on the topic - if it's more than one year old, don't bother buying it (that goes for a lot of tech books these days). One common theme to the more modern texts is that the Simple Object Access Protocol is neither Simple nor does it work with Objects, so these days SOAP is just another protocol name and less of an acronym for any meaningful definition. As time goes on, at Nebula R&D we've found that we really need to know less about SOAP itself and more about the tools which create SOAP-compliant XML. However, knowledge of the protocol has proven to be very valuable when dealing with people who have written "the other side" of a new interface. Bottom line, you don't need to be a SOAP expert to use it, but every bit helps. What is the .NET framework?The .NET Framework is an extensive library of functionality which developers can use and extend. There are numerous books and websites available to describe its details. Some people are afraid of running ".NET" on their systems.
As the VBRUN.DLL files enable us to run VB4, VB5, or VB6, the many files
of the .NET Framework software allows us to run .NET code. The installable
package is around 23MB, but it's very safe, co-exists in harmony with
all other Windows software, and it's
freely downloadable from Microsoft. It can't hurt to install the .NET Framework, and when you finally do load any program that relies on the .NET Framework you will already have it installed. Here are some of the many benefits of code written for the .NET Framework
Nebula Research and Development is partnering with recognized providers to provide state-of-the-art development using Microsoft .NET Framework Technologies. It is our belief that mainstream interfaces bring new marketability to legacy business applications. If you would like more information about our services, please see our contact page, or e-mail . Tools for developing Web ServicesKomodo is an IDE available from ActiveState, a recognized and respected source for open source software and services. Related to this article, Komodo allows you to generate code based on a description of Web Services found on a server. This allows you to quickly generate a client proxy. We've used Komodo for editing Perl, XML, and HTML. As we will see in the Spectrum articles, Perl is cross-platform and open source, and is excellent for providing or consuming Web Services. Komodo also runs on both Linux and Windows, making it a great tool for writing and debugging cross-platform code. Sun Microsystems has a number of offerings for development of Web Services, primarily using Java. You can learn more about Web Services in general and Sun offerings in particular here. Systinet provides tools and services for Web Services development, primarily with Java and C/C++. For information about tools and services from IBM, go to their home page and use their Search box to find "web services". Also, IBM has suggested that Universe 11 and UniData 6.1 should include enhancements for development of Web Services. See the U2 Tools page and view the PDF document with IBM's commitment to the U2 product line. Nebula Research and Development has experience
with a number of tools available in the MultiValue and mainstream marketplace
for developing Web Service interfaces, including Microsoft Visual Studio
and related tools, C#Builder from Borland, Perl, and the Pick Data Provider
.NET from Raining Data. If you would like assistance with your own development
using these or other tools, see our contact page, or e-mail
© 2007 Nebula Research and Development |
||||
|
Home | About
Us | News | FAQ
| Products E-mail
for Product and Service inquiries. |
||||
