Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Amazon appears to be talking about SOAP. 

SOAP, conceptually, is pretty simple. You take the arguments to the 
procedure and wrap them up in XML. You put the function you're calling into 
the headers. You post the message (with appropriate crypto signatures if 
necessary) to the appropriate URL. You get back from the web server your 
answer, probably again wrapped up in XML.

WSDL is a way of specifying what arguments go where in the sending and 
returning XML.

Generally, you write the server end and have the IDE generate the WSDL file 
for it. You give the WSDL file to someone else, who hands it to *their* IDE, 
which writes the client stub. So it's basic remote procedure invocation, 
lathered up with a bunch of Web 2.0 buzzwords.

If you don't do the automation part, it's an awful technology. If you do the 
automation part, it's a convenient way of filling that niche. Most 
complaints about it are how hard it is to automate, or that it's the wrong 
way to do distributed computing.

In theory, SOAP supposedly runs over things other than HTTP. In practice, it 
doesn't, in part because they left out of SOAP some of the vital parts that 
HTTP provides (like cookies, for example).

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.

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