Hello monks!

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction! I've never used SOAP... but a lot of folk seem to offer SOAP-based API's and I'd like to play with some. However, the more I look though nodes here the more confused I get. So I'm making an appeal for information.

• Is there a Perl+SOAP best practices kinda node out there? I get reams of results super searching for SOAP but very little that starts me off from the beginning. (Do any Perl books deal with it?)
• Lacking a book or node, what's the best way to construct a request? I read that SOAP::Lite is the way to go, then SOAP::WSDL, then that SOAP::WSDL is no longer maintained and (some of) it's functionality was folded into SOAP::Lite. e.g.
  • Do I use SOAP::Data to painstakingly build a request?
  • SOAP::WSDL isn't maintained any more but seems to have an easier way to do it if you HAVE an WSDL document available. Use that?
• Can someone point me to a pre-existing module on CPAN that implements an API via SOAP? I couldn't see any but perhaps I'm looking for the wrong thing?
• Is this perl.com article from 2001 still applicable or have things changed a fair bit since then?

Frankly, it all looks a little weird and scary and a little overwhelming to me, but I'd like to learn. I've just found that getting a more complete picture of things has me leaping from one module to the next and what I need to know grows exponentially before I even understand how the basic stuff works. Help? If I'm gonna do something I'd like to do it right... I feel like it's more of an information overload than a shortage of information.

Apologies if this is too general.

Many thanks!

update: ack (a great grep replacement as well as a good expression of annoyance). fixed a little grammar... it's a good think i don't write books

update le second: whoops. SOAP::WDSL _is_ still being maintained. I'm gonna hafta find that node again.

update troisieme: I am a sad Panda. :-( SOAP::WSDL is not a fan of the WSDL I'm trying to play with. Are there alternatives? Can I make my own "fake" spec of some kind? XML templates instead?

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