Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> Yes. Think of it like a procedure call between machines.
> 
> So it's a way of issuing server commands without needing a human to 
> press the button?

Think of it like a procedure call between machines. :-)  I don't know what 
"button" you're talking about. "Buttons" are UI features. SOAP is a 
programming library mechanism. SOAP is a mechanism where you can write 
something like
    X = floob("Hello", 23)
and get back some data structure in X that was generated when "floob" and 
"Hello" and "23" were passed to some server somewhere. It doesn't matter 
whether that function call is invoked by pushing a button, a timer, a CLI, etc.

> Rather like the way HTTP responses are supposed to be "immediate"? 
> (I.e., the browser hangs if it isn't.)

Yes.

>> Exactly.  I have a library to do just that, only it uses the REST 
>> interface (which isn't really REST) to do so.
> 
> What's REST then?

Representational State Transfer.   A set of rules that almost nobody who 
claims to use REST actually follows.  But most everyone who calls their 
interfaces "REST" but which aren't means "just like SOAP, only without the 
ability to automate stub creation."  That is, you send us an XML request, 
and we return an XML answer, but you have to write all the code to parse out 
the results from the answer as a special case for each such service.

>> Also, http://console.aws.amazon.com/ lets you do it all from a web 
>> browser, or so they just announced. I haven't tried it.
> 
> Yes, I noticed that. Currently only EC2 though. (?)

As I said, I haven't looked.  The "s3fox" extension gives you access to 
Amazon S3 with a decent UI from firefox.

-- 
   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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