Clean Web Services don't need SOAP. Let them REST!

Many technologies have a way of over-complicating simple concepts and end up tagging these unneeded complications with misused adjectives. Sometimes ignorant documents will invent their own jargon or try to promote it by calling it enterprisy. What is Enterprisy? Well, what does it make you think of? Perhaps, you think of a huge corporate board room full of silver spoon executives decided how they can get a bigger yaht, oh yeah and that the company needs to invest in some technology infrastructer. Better get that brand that is made for enterprises :/...

Now obviously I am being a little dramatic here and completely one sided. The beauty of blogs is that I can be.

Anyway, on to what I really wanted to talk about, RESTful Web Services. Now I am not a RESTful and RESTful only advocate by any means, but really RESTful is just such an elegant solution that is passed over quickly by anyone who has never laughed when they read about something being 'Enterprisy'.

First of all if you are unfamiliar with the meaning of RESTful Web Services, please google it and read about what it is and learn about its comparison to SOAP. There is enough documentation out there to help you solidify these two technologies without wasting my time trying :).

What RESTful offers is a convention based way of Web Service communication that utilizes existing HTTP protocols instead of putting verbose meta data ontop of it like in SOAP. What does this translate into? Speed, simplicity, reuse of wide spread technology... take your pick. Now, soap is definately a powerful tool these days as many coporations have invested in these tools and promotion of this method of Web Service generation making it a valuable weapon in you development arsenal. My problem is that every layer you build on you are supposed to be trading convience for performance, but in SOAP's case I just don't feel that convience factor out waying the cost. You can have the same convience without the over head in RESTful design.

Now the bad part, which is going to be the dominate technology in 5, 10, and mabye 20 years? I don't know, but I'd be willing to bet SOAP is still going to be more popular that RESTful design. Why? Because of the heavy investment made by corporations around the world. Moreover, does it really matter if you use RESTful or SOAP or something as old as COBRA? As far as a user is concerend, no fucking way. What does matter is that your solution is relatively secure and relatively inexpensive to develop and maintain. If you are the owner of your own company you have the benifit of choosing your own technologies. Unfortunately, that is a small percenage. Anyway, seeing nobody reads my posts anyway i'll stop ranting and if your that lone wolf still reading this make sure you check out RESTful Web Services.