“2006 Is going to be a banner year for Web services in general, and for Java Web services in particular. New third-generation frameworks are being unveiled, which offer much better support for doc/lit SOAP as well as potential performance improvements. This article looks at both the state of Web services today and the major changes coming in 2006, and get an overview of how the new frameworks and technologies relate and interact.”
I once saw a squirrel monkey stuff a whole cherry into its mouth. It had a look of utter frustration knowing that there was tasty stuff in that cherry but not being able to get it because its mouth was so full it couldn’t chew.
That’s how I feel about Web Services. I’ve wanted to dive in and exploit it for a couple years–read a book and a number of articles, but just haven’t managed to chew it.
This is another overview article, but it’s helpful because it seems to treat the various competing technologies in a fair way. For example, I sense the author doesn’t like REST, but there is no flame here–just discussion.
He doesn’t give a reference for REST, but here’s one:
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/08/11/rest.html