It would be more accurate to say:
Perl is a great language, but avoid it when it comes to web service interaction in other languages.
ie, it's fine to use SOAP::Lite -> SOAP::Lite, or even SOAP::Lite -> SOAP, but don't try mixing in gsoap, or any of the other SOAP toolkits w/out a whole bunch of headaches.
The problem? It's not Perl -- it's almost all SOAP -- it's like the early days of CSS -- the specifications came out, lots of people wrote to how they understood the specifications, and lo and behold, everyone came up with different interpretations, thus their toolkits weren't compatable. When you start mixing in different encoding types, languages that don't support certain data types, or mixing loose and strict typed toolkits, you're going to have problems.
Update: okay, before someone complains that the whole point of webservices is that it's intended to be language neutral, and so you're supposed to talk to other toolkits, yes, that's true. However, I've also run into other interaction problems in SOAP that didn't involve Perl, so it's not just a Perl thing -- it's bad implementations across the board. (I'm currently writing bad SOAP implementations in IDL, myself)
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Yes, it is not just a Perl thing, however Perl seems to be on the poor side among all the solutions. One of the major problem is that Perl SOAP is so out-of-dated, when other solutions are getting improved all the time.
Interoperatability is an issue, but Perl seems to have much poorer interoperatability.
Awhile back I heard some stupid comment saying that one should not complain about SOAP::Lite, because it is lite, and if one is a good programmer, why not just code from bottom up. That was one of the most stupid comment I have heard here. If everybody is going to code SOAP bottom up, then IT is not an industry.
A good programmer is lazy, and with a good SOAP solution, you are even not aware of the existance of SOAP.
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