Thread: web services architectural styles

Started: 2005-10-21 18:30:47
Last activity: 2005-10-21 18:30:47
Topics: Web Services
Linus Kamb
2005-10-21 18:30:47
I am interested in starting a discussion on the pros, cons, and pitfalls of the various
architectural styles of web services, particularly WSDL/SOAP -based (ala W3C Web Services
Architecture) approaches versus REST -style approaches.

Perhaps much of this discussion was covered at the FGIT meeting, but I was unable to
attend that meeting.

I don't expect to reach a conclusion that one style is necessarily better than another, as
I think the answer to that will continue for some time to be "it depends."

But I would like to have a discussion about *how* it depends.

In your experience developing web service services and, where appropriate, clients, what
drove your decision to choose one style or another? Were there any difficulties in this
approach for your desired service? How complex is your service? The parameters to your
service? Do you have large or complex data sets to access or transfer?

I am interested in this discussion as I have to make this decision for my current project:
a searchable archive of XML-encoded data products. I don't really want this discussion to
get caught up in the details of my project at the moment, but I would be happy to discuss
issues in my project with anyone who might be interested.

Thanks

- Linus



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