InfoWorld features an extensive special show report regarding Web Services and the way they are shaping up for the near future.
InfoWorld on Next-Gen Web Services
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
The biggest problem with web services now is integration with the client. Both IE and Mozilla should make this a focus for upcoming versions. Not only should full SOAP (XML-RPC is not going to succeed) support be there, but also client applications that use it.
The biggest problem with web services, IMHO, is that
– the user has to accept it
– the service provider has to accept it
– it has to provide an advantage over HTML/Java applet-based solutions
all at the same time. Now what could be the advantage over HTML/Java? The main thing I can think of is the promise that thanks to XML it would be easier for such applications to interoperate. BUT:
– service providers won’t want this if the application is for free, because anyone could use the application with a client that doesn’t show the advertising with which the service provider makes its money
– when the user has to pay for the service, you have the usual troubles with getting people to pay. And the interoperability promise is only coming to fruition if there are several services that the user uses and pays for – and it’s already difficult to make people pay for *one* service.
– finally, most service providers will want to have some control over how people use their service – sooner or later, there’s gonna be clients that attach to several web services and use them in a way that the service provider doesn’t like
Basically, I think the main problem with interoperability is not a technical one, it’s that the more players you try to get together, the harder it gets. For example, a service provider will rather want to sell their own extensions rather than letting its service interoperate with someone else’s service. And even if they want to provide interoperability, they want to control the level of interoperability – impossible if you provide the service via XML and let the interoperability happen on the client side, which is under the user’s control.
So, interoperability is not going to happen (even though it would be nice for the user) – Microsoft should understand that more than anyone else, after all nobody has erected more interoperability barriers than they have).
In the end, SOAP is going to replace Corba. A nice standard for corporations to let their in-house applications interface with each other, and probably more performant and easier to use than Corba. A gradual improvement in this area, but no revolution. And, just like Corba, practically non-existant in the consumer space.
And .Net? A great improvement for the Windows API (the Win32 API is horrible and needed a refresh badly) and, especially, a great improvement over (D)COM. But you won’t see it very often on the Internet, because there’s no need for it there.
InfoWorld’s treatment of their own conference on web services is shameful.
There is no journalism to be found. It is all one big advertisement.
One giant advertisement.
I couldn’t find one objective article on their home page about web services.
Infoworld is motivated by the fear that if web services (or some other big trendy thing) doesn’t take off soon, Infoworld is in big financial trouble.
Welcome to the Bush Zone. Yes, without any focus on the economy, it will have troubles. Yes, with Bush’s deliberate plan to kill off the high tech industry it will have problems. Most any alive person who doesn’t watch TV could see that.
Bombs are not jobs. Spending 500 BILLION DOLLARS on WAR and DEATH will not improve the tech industry. Sure a few companies will benefit. But very few and in very narrow verticals. What used to be a light offered to humanity will be extinguished. All in the name of world domination.
Instead of trying to trump up web services — technology that in one form or another has been around for 40 years — look at the larger issues of the high tech economy.
Does web services solve any pressing business problem? Not really. But it is a way for the big companies — Microsoft and IBM in particular — to sell more software and work themselves further into your IT organization.
Maybe it’s time to stop — completely stop — the mad rush to embrace every new technology that a Microsoft or IBM puts on the table and focus on doing things like talking to customers?
I know it’s a radical concept. But being a human being so other human beings can talk to you is the only true blessing a person can bring to the world.
Web services is just another dotcom sham. Taking HTTP and XML and creating a bunch of specifications and then saying “look at these new clothes” is a disgraceful act of fraud.
This is nothing new. Just a another flavor of same stuff that computer professionals have been working on for decades.
Maybe Infoworld should have a conference on “honest listening” and “reporting with integrity”.
#p
WebServices already start to have an impact for businesses, for things like electronic marketplaces. They will easily replace clumsy things like CORBA and proprietary protocols like Java’s RMI, without any doubt.
But will they change things on the desktop? I doubt it, at especially in the near future. Webservice protocols make client/server communication easier for the developer, but they dont allow things that have not been possible before. So there will be more apps that communicate over the web, but this will not ‘change the internet’ As already pointed out, because of the lack of advertising there is no real incentive for a service provider to use a web service instead of a real application.
.Net may open up a somewhat bigger chance for web services though. Suddenly it will be possible to write well-integrated apps (well-integrated with Windows) that can offer possibilities that did not exist so far. For example a company like UPS could offer a small app that hides in the system tray and starts to blink when the state of a package added. With a click on it you could get more information. Today nobody would write an app like this, because no one would want to install an application just for a tiny feature like this. With Java it isnt possible either, because of the total lack of integration with the OS. But with .Net and its security features a small app like this could be installed with a click or two. That could have *some* impact, but still change the way you use computers…
Yeah, I have to agree here to an extent. However, one of the goals of web services has been to offer open standards. For that UPS example, I should be able to write my own little application to do the same thing (with the same data that your example application is receiving) without Microsoft, UPS, or any other company disapproving of this.
In my new book, ‘Creating Applications with Mozilla’, I made an example of a Mozilla application (anything from a Mozilla-mod, plug-in, or advanced web page interface) that uses SOAP to communication with a .NET web service that I wrote. SOAP support in Mozilla is far enough along now where it can be used to demonstrate examples of how Mozilla can be used to integrate with web services.
Unfortunately, Mozilla is not likely to become a major client platform for web services anytime soon. It’s not a major focus of the project, and nor should it be as of right now.
To get back to your post. In some places (in the near future), I agree. However, people who develop web services generally have the mindset where the whole OS user-interface and applicaions become web services. I do believe this will eventually happen for a lot of reasons, but not any time soon.
I don’t think is deliberately killing off the tech industry, but he sure is not helping things get better. Luckily, I have a job where a war may actually come as a benefit to my company, but I certainly am against attacking Iraq in the manner that Bush wants to. That aside, I don’t think this topic directly relates to web services 🙂
Web services are *supposed* to make things easier, faster, and better (in general) than what we have now. As of right now, they are not doing this in a visible way to 99% of us. However, I do think they will gradually catch on as new implementations of them are born.
They are “just a another flavor of same stuff that computer professionals have been working on for decades”, but this new flavor will bring new things to go along with it. Just look at the Internet which is built on technologies that pre-date the Internet. They were changed just a bit and together formed something great.
Look at all that has sprung up just from HTML. Shit, this page is generated by PHP. Do you think PHP would exist without HTML? HTML was just another flaver of formatting and linking documents that already existed.
XML is the next HTML. “Web services” are the next “web sites”. People will slowly realize this fact once the technologies become mature.
Do you think PHP generating HTML 1.0 for Netscape 1.0 would have been all that useful? Hello no. It was another 5 years before this stuff really caught on.
Just be patient…
i dont see much use for this except in specialized instances. but maybe i will think of something later
Web services are *supposed* to make things easier, faster, and better (in general) than what we have now. As of right now, they are not doing this in a visible way to 99% of us. However, I do think they will gradually catch on as new implementations of them are born.
So right now they are not doing anything visibly useful. Why is so hard to say that they are just another “marginally useful” technology that is being shoved down our throats?
XML is great, don’t get me wrong. But a bunch of big players coming up with a new standard and then forcing it on people is not the way of the web. At least it is not the way of the web before corporate avarice took over.
They are “just a another flavor of same stuff that computer professionals have been working on for decades”, but this new flavor will bring new things to go along with it. Just look at the Internet which is built on technologies that pre-date the Internet. They were changed just a bit and together formed something great.
The Internet technologies (HTTP, HTML, TCP/IP, DNS, etc) were not baked up overnight by a bunch of big corporations and then sold into companies as the “next big thing”. They evolved slowly for many years being used by normal people, academia, students, and industry.
Look at all that has sprung up just from HTML. Shit, this page is generated by PHP. Do you think PHP would exist without HTML? HTML was just another flaver of formatting and linking documents that already existed.
Web services are not PHP. It took many years for PHP to evolve, based on what happened with many other scripting solutions. It was not a “big IT companies get together and meet in a room and write specifications” kinda thing.
XML is the next HTML. “Web services” are the next “web sites”. People will slowly realize this fact once the technologies become mature.
What are you? A walking advertisement? Who is supposed to use this next generation web you are talking about? HTML 1.0 could be understood by non-programmers. XML is very complex today. Web services are not websites by any means. And none of the new stuff is usable by a large community of people. The web is getting worse in many ways, not better. The cost of putting together a website has ramped up over time, not gone down.
Do you think PHP generating HTML 1.0 for Netscape 1.0 would have been all that useful? Hello no. It was another 5 years before this stuff really caught on.
Actually, I think it would have been very useful. You are forgetting the amazing power of SIMPLICITY. In many ways PHP caught on because JSP was very complex, overkill. Keep moving down the complexity curve and you will find something that would be even cooler than PHP which requires a skilled developer to make a decent website.
Just be patient…
I see the web getting more fucked up every day as corporations force their greedy schemes on it. ‘Web services’ is just another instrument of corporate avarice.
The web needs to be simpler, more open to people. It doesn’t need vast security architectures, more complex protocols for sending information back and forth, or markup languages that are only understandable by the very best programmers.
KISS. KISS. KISS.
#p
Hey troll, get out from under our bridge! How the hell does one link the war on terrorism directly to the downturn in the tech industry? Face it, the reason why the tech industry is in the dumps is because it was overhyped to investors and used by those “in-the-know” to fleece those who were not, just like the railroads in the latter part of the 19th century. This cycle will happen again with the next “revolutionary” technology that comes down the pike. This isn’t so much due to the “Evil G.W.” as it is a side-effect of human nature. Get off your soapbox about the war and go troll somewhere else.
After reading some of these posts, I get the impression that some people have a sli-i-i-i-i-i-ght misunderstanding of what web services are. Simply put, a web service is a collection of stateless methods (i.e., procedures) that can be called using the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The “web” part comes in because these services are accessed over HTTP.
A web service is really an Application Programming Interface (API) exposed over the web. For instance, UPS could expose web services that would allow one to track packages, etc. These services could then be incorporated into an application by anyone to whom UPS gives access to their web services. Web services are not applications. Rather, web services are the building blocks from which applications can be built. These applications can be assembled server-side or client-side, depending upon the needs of the application.
Oh, and web services are not web sites. Web services are not a user-interface technology. Instead, if one thinks of a web site as an application, a web site’s functionality could be assembled from web services.
I concur 100% with Marvin’s assessment of the biggest weaknesses in the web services model – implementers simply cannot design in enough control (easily) to make web services profitable or controllable in the manner they would like. Right now, the standard connectivity is just much too open to anyone who decides they feel like connecting to your service and you have to do a lot of extra work to lock things down. There definitely does not seem to be a good control model that has been integrated into the specs at this point that would make this as easy as it should be.
I would suggest that web services are going to evolve into two extremes – extremely open services (like UPS package tracking, weather forecasts, etc.) that virutally anyone can connect to and use for free, or, extremely closed in-house and intra-corporate services (like accounting system integration or supply-chain networks or b2b hubs) that are severely restricted in terms of who can connect to them, conditionally, possibly with fees involved. There just does not seem to be a good middle-ground between these two extremes that offers anything better than what we have now and is going to flourish into a thriving revolutionary new technology for the web. I think of web services as more of an evolutionary advancement that makes it much easier to expose and integrate systems that are currently closed to each other.
integrate the web service client with the web browser. it will make rthem more accesable and more conveinient.
having helped design and build a complex financial industry http/xml request/response web system, one that is currently in use by millions of people for critical information, i think my opinion is qualified. this system was the basis for microsoft creating ‘web services’ in the first place.
did we need ‘web services’ to build what we built? no. would ‘web services’ have made anything easier, better, faster, cheaper, etc? no.
‘web services’ is how big IT shops are going to put their bread on the table. in and of themselves, web serivces do nothing for the customer. you better have something worth money to run through those soap pipes. otherwise, you are just throwing money down the drain.
so far about 50% of IT customers using web services have seen no benefits.
the industry could have evolved and slow cooked for longer without microsoft leading the charge to throw another dubious and not all the way cooked technology into the market.
as for relating the ‘war on terrorism’ with the state of the tech industry, all that takes is keeping up with the news. it is well known that bush has spent almost zero effort on the economy.
we are not simply in the dotcom blues. that is the mainstream media answer for the people who don’t want to think.
the dotcom crash was carefully timed by greenspan so that the big money people — venture capitalists, institutional money, corporate money, and execs — could get their money out. they changed a SEC law to make this possible. as soon as the employees were lined up to start taking out large money from the market, the dotcom bubble crashed. the timing was perfect. no need to see a whole lot of good caring people get any real money.
when big money wants the tech market to come back, you’ll start reading ‘hidden gems in tech’ and ‘insiders buying tech’ articles in the mainstream media and then all of sudden, tech will be cool again and stocks will go up. and big money will be riding the roller coaster up… ready to sell at the top and then laugh all the way down while the dupes scream for their lives, their mortgages, and their sanity.
#p
Web services are web APIs. Sure, a user can directly access a system or a web API and feed in details and get a response but it’s not really built for that. A user will want a pretty GUI application wrapper around that API with error checking and help files and pretty icons. Web services don’t provide that, and they’re not supposed to. Like any API, web services are primarily for computer to computer use.
When you’re trialing a web service you would probably use a browser, though.
One thing I’ve noticed is that people seem to think that it’s dangerous to have a web service component in their application. There’s no particular reason why a web service would be more fragile than, say, an FTP server – and they can be up most of the time too. Sure, it’s remote, so you have to deal with that elegantly, but there’s nothing inherently unreliable in web services.
Web-services suit live data, and bulk processing. Stock market data is a good example of useful remote web services. Any type of geocoding, or batch processing, tends to suit it. It can also be a safe way to expose part of your application to the public without having to distribute binaries.
While it’s fun to talk about web services falling or rising they’ll die as soon as the web dies. Quite obviously computer to computer interaction across the web is here to stay.
(I’ve written a few web services in VS ASP.NET/SOAP, and PHP XML-RPC)
Dude, you are comedy. You are full of conspiracy theories, but to be honest, I actually agree with most of your points. Keep up the good (albeit offtopic) posts.
If you don’t want to use web services, don’t. Microsoft might be trying to stuff it down our throats, as you say, but there is not much we can do about it. Open source projects such as Mono are trying to keep up with .NET, therefore offering a free alternative to $$$ Microsoft products.
So Prophet, what is the future of .NET anyway?
1st-gen didn’t work, why would 2nd? More dotCOM Crap.
Here’s some good information that was either never mentioned or whitewashed in the mainstream media —
Until the late 1990s, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Rule 144 generally required that insiders hold their stock for two years after an IPO. That rule was changed on February 20, 1997 to allow insider sales much sooner. The boom in dumb IPOs followed shortly thereafter. Under the old rule, if the company tanked months after the IPO, management, and the venture capitalists, went down with the ship. The new rule provides a “golden life raft”, allowing management and the VCs to cash out and watch from safety while the ship goes down without them.
It’s instructive to read the position of the National Venture Capital Association, the VC’s trade association, when they were lobbying for this change: “The NVCA supports a further shortening of this holding period. This further shortening would enable venture capital funds to provide faster liquidity to fund investors, thereby increasing their returns and attracting more capital for investment in emerging growth companies.” This is financial-speak for “let’s party”.
That single rule change made the bubble possible. In retrospect, making insider sales easier was terrible public policy. The only people who benefit are those doing IPOs that shouldn’t have been done at all.
The truth is starting to come out. Much of the dot-com boom was a scam, fueled by corrupt investment banks who, in the words of the San Jose Mercury News, took “kickbacks from preferred clients in exchange for big allocations of shares in coveted Internet IPOs.” The SEC is investigating Morgan Staley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Robertson Stephens, and others for “laddering”, a market manipulation scheme designed to inflate stock prices immediately after the IPO. This may turn out to be the biggest “pump and dump” scheme of all time.
Not to mention Merill Lynch being investigated for creating phony stock ratings.
Or the criminal investigation of AOL for fradulent reporting and accounting.
New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer is widening his investigation. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Stock Exchange, the National Association of Securities Dealers, the North American Securities Administrators Association, and a number of states are now investigating.
If any executive that works at your company has early sell rights in his employment contract, quit and go to another company. Your company is corrupt. That executive is just there just for an instant cash out. You, the employee, will end up putting all your life’s energy into the company and get little or nothing out of it.
The bankers and other players that inflated the bubble and then popped it after they had stolen billions of dollars from the public are guilty of the biggest monetary fraud in the history of the world.
Don’t get fooled again. The law is still written so that the “let’s party instant cash-out” is legal and available for bankers and executives.
#p