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XML, Web Services, and the Data Revolution By Frank P. Coyle | |
Table of Contents | |
In this chapter we go beyond XML's use in defining industry-specific data description languages to its use as a protocol language that has enabled communication and data exchange across the Web. While XML has proven effective in promoting data exchange between partners and collaborators across a wide range of industries, it has surprised many in opening up a new perspective on middleware with XML protocols such as XML Remote Procedure Call (XML-RPC) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), that offer platform, language, and transport independence for data exchange between partners and suppliers. XML accomplishes this through its simplicity of purpose and design, making no assumptions about Web transport. Critical to XML's success has been HTTP. The simple idea of transporting XML in the payload of an HTTP request has been the driving force behind Web-based distributed computing and the emergence of Web services. Because HTTP has been a catalyst for the Web and for XML, we'll look at how HTTP fits with strategies for delivering data and code across the Web and how XML-RPC and SOAP provide alternatives to conventional object-based distributed computing. |
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