SOA styles | InfoWorld | Column | 2005-05-25 | By Jon Udell

SOA styles | InfoWorld | Column | 2005-05-25 | By Jon Udell: "I don�t often emerge from a conference with a single overwhelming insight, but in this case that�s just what happened. The juxtaposition of the two events helped me reconcile a deep schism between two factions, which I�ll call the WS-* and Web 2.0 camps. The argument, which revolves around pairs of opposing and overloaded words � simplicity vs. complexity, decentralization vs. centralization, agility vs. stability � has been going on for years, but it�s gotten really loud in recent months. "

I'll be posting more SOA stuff in the future - this is an interesting debate... think the alphabet soup of WS-* (which hardly anyone knows all of), and the simpler, plain old XML via HTTP constructs, used by google, Yahoo, Amazon, and other mainstream companies. As a part-time hacker, I personally prefer the straight up HTTP options... Nothing like whipping up some cool perl script to make some magic.

In fact it seems to the only real place for WS-* is in orchestration.... if services will be consumed by their end-point, XML over HTTP is far simpler (and far faster). If you are automating a long process with several decision points though, and if it may change in the near future, straight up scripting may turn into a hinderance...