Gorby has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello Wise Monks.

What is meant by the term "Webservices"?

If someone says, "You will be connecting to our office via webservices", what does that mean?

Thanks in advance.

Gorby

"OT:" added to title by tye

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Webservices
by edoc (Chaplain) on Jan 12, 2004 at 01:33 UTC
[reply]
Re: Webservices
by etcshadow (Priest) on Jan 12, 2004 at 02:22 UTC
    In general, a "web service" is basically just some kind of remote procedure call system implemented over the web's transport protocol (http or https). This means it is a way for one computer program to perform tasks/answer questions for another computer program, remotely (that is: not on the same computer... or at least in a manner which could be used even if it were on another computer, although the two programs in question might be on the same question).

    There are an awful lot of different uses for remote procedure calls. There are also an awful lot of different implementations of remote procedure call frameworks. There are even several that fall under the ubmrella of "web services": SOAP, XML-RPC, and tons of varieties of roll-your-own.

    Anyway... when somebody says something like "You will be connecting to our office via webservices", it's basically gibberish. What it probably means is that they either:

    • don't know what they're talking about
    • think that you don't know what they're talking about
    • are completely unable to communicate with the lay person
    Now... if accurate (or as close as can be approximated), what it means is that you will be using some kind application, remotely, that resides on a computer in their office. And that the means for transporting requests for the application and responses from the application, is a web protocol... even though you probably won't be using a web browser, or, really, be in any way aware of the fact that the data is traveling back and forth in web requests and responses, versus, say, emails, or UDP datagrams, or any of a billion methods for carrying data from here to there. 
    ------------
:Wq
Not an editor command: Wq

    [download]
[reply]
[d/l]
      I think you may be right about this guy. "Web Services" could mean a million things, and the various replies to my question confirm this. Thanks.
[reply]
Re: Webservices
by Roger (Parson) on Jan 12, 2004 at 01:25 UTC
    This is not a Perl related question though. But anyway...

    You can find out most of the Web Service related stuff on the W3C website ... Web Service Glossary.

[reply]
Re: Webservices
by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Jan 12, 2004 at 01:23 UTC
    Most likely, that someone means some kind of service is offered via HTTP (which could be a simple static document, HTTP forms, a complex Java program, or something else), although HTTP is just one of many protocols that make the Web (but most people don't realize it).

    But this has nothing at all to do with Perl.

    Abigail

[reply]
      "Most likely, that someone means ..."

      Most likely NOT! web serive is a formal terminology that has its well defined meaning. Today, most of the IT people knows what web service is.

      "But this has nothing at all to do with Perl"

      I am not sure whether you are thinking of Java, but web service is not owned by any specific language. The service could be provided by a component written in any language, obviously including Perl. So Perl is related to web service.

      Here is the official definition given by W3C:

      "A Web service is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. It has an interface described in a machine-processable format (specifically WSDL). Other systems interact with the Web service in a manner prescribed by its description using SOAP-messages, typically conveyed using HTTP with an XML serialization in conjunction with other Web-related standards."
[reply]
        The service could be provided by a component written in any language, obviously including Perl. So Perl is related to web service.
        General ledger software can be written in Perl. I am glad to hear I can ask my questions about the requirements for a financial statement here.
[reply]
        Most likely NOT! web serive is a formal terminology that has its well defined meaning. Today, most of the IT people knows what web service is.
        Well, I doubt most people claiming to be an IT person know the formal definition of 'webservices'. However, that's beside the point. The OP spoke of 'someone', without any indication that the 'someone' had anything to do with IT.

        Abigail

[reply]
        I can't help but think that more often than not, you open your mouth with nothing to say. I see no problem with what Abigail-II said, and in fact in the W3C spec that you gave, it says:
        ...typically conveyed using HTTP...
        Which is not really that different, is it?
[reply]
Re: Webservices
by NetWallah (Canon) on Jan 12, 2004 at 02:08 UTC
    Micro$oft's Dot Net platform's claim to fame is Web services, which they (rightfully) claim are easy to implement in .Net.

    The service amounts to RPC (Remote procedure call) over HTTP or HTTPS. You will hear the words SOAP, XML-HTTP-Request UDDI and others associated with this service.

    "When you are faced with a dilemma, might as well make dilemmanade. "
[reply]
Re: Webservices
by pg (Canon) on Jan 12, 2004 at 03:20 UTC

    One example of web service is UDDI, and I had a piece of Perl code to access UDDI: UDDI business query. Although in this particular case, Perl is the client side, Perl can obviously be used to write components that provide web services.

[reply]
Re: Webservices
by Wassercrats (Initiate) on Jan 12, 2004 at 04:59 UTC
    I came across a few definitions of web services, web applications, application service providers, etc. several months ago, and I'm still not clear on what the terms mean. Some definitions were contradictory. Must the user access the service with another application for the service to be considered a web service? I could open a webpage in a word processor and pass a query string that causes the web page to create certain dynamic content. Does that make the web page a web service? I'm creating a web based site mapping program. It's web based and its a service. Is it not a web service?
[reply]
[reply]
Re: Webservices
by coreolyn (Parson) on Jan 12, 2004 at 15:11 UTC

    I'm puzzled by the attitude displayed by this node. While it is not a 'Perl specific' question it is without a doubt a qutestionable term that all Perl programmers should at least be aware of. The consideration of this node as OT I find baffling. Moving it to meditations I would have understood, but to to not see the value and pertinance of the marketing of webservices to Perl developers somehow rubs me the wrong way.

    I agree that the term has little value add in the scheme of things. It reminds me of the abuse of the word "portal" a few years ago, but understanding of the market and it's terminology is as important to Perl developers as the code itself.

    coreolyn
[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom