SOAP vs REST

Does anyone else think the W3C have lost control of their own standards process? The WS-* specification collection seems to get bigger and bigger. Not surprisingly there are now calls for a WS-Architecture to try define how all these WS-* specifications fit together.

Nobody seems to be stepping up to the plate though, possibly because it would be an impossible task without dropping or heavily revising some of the specifications that have been poorly written or developed in splendid isolation. Not surprisingly, nobody wants to do that as it would cost commercial software companies money to change their products.

Some claimed that CORBA ‘failed’ because is was complex to use but the WS-* collection of specifications is surely surpassing CORBA in terms of complexity - does that mean WS-* is facing failure?

Back in the real world, I’ve noticed references to some commercial online services are up and running on the alternative REST architecture style - for example Amazon. This seems to be causing some friction between the two camps and the good news is we all get to watch the fight/debate in public. The w3c’s architecture mailing list archive is a good place to start and then there are blog discussions like this one

Thursday, January 27th, 2005 net

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