More SOAP or Dampen Thy Evangelical Fires oh Disciples

Well, to answer some of the responses I've read. Fighting Microsoft - Well, the best way to fight Microsoft's embrace and extend approach is to embrace yourself. Whatever you may say, IE does a better job of supporting new standards than Netscape (excluding Mozilla, of course). Microsoft is doing a lot to embrace XML. If we don't embrace them as well, we lose control of the standard, and we are forced to use Microsoft products in our work-a-day lives. My reason for wanting to support SOAP is that I can use it to sell a FreeBSD/Apache/PHP/Postgres solution to an otherwise Microsoft shop. It allows me to integrate my product with their future plans, and perhaps even to influence their view of open source software. The best way to fight Microsoft is to beat them at their own game, in my not so humble opinion. CORBA - I don't know CORBA. I couldn't help you there. And it's my understanding that there are several abortive efforts underway to move CORBA support into PHP. At any rate, CORBA has more to fear from Sun than Microsoft. SOAP is not a competitor to CORBA. SOAP is not a competitor for CORBA. It doesn't dictate any object model. CORBA and COM can communicate using SOAP. SOAP's competitors are: DCOM, IIOP, Java RMI, WDDX, and WIDL. SOAP needs something else to work, like CORBA, or JAVA, or Perl, or hopefully PHP. Open Source HOOHAA - Well, supporting an open protocal that is really just XML over HTTP isn't exactly bowing to Microsoft. Anyways, I never suggested moving this into the heart of PHP. I was aiming more at a collection of PHP Classes with which to implement SOAP messages. Though, now that I think of it, the former may be the better approach. At any rate, I am also an open source bigot. I only want to support SOAP because it seems: a) quite useful for my specific needs b) to have industry momentum c) frees me from heavyweight programming with protocols like JAVA RMI, CORBA and DCOM (Shudder). d) lets me do something simply and quickly. e) it's kind of a good idea. Security - Security is always an exercise left to the reader. Don't do stupid things and bad things won't happen to you. Since SOAP rides on HTTP, it is no more or less secure than that protocol. It's what you allow it to do that makes it dangerous. A SOAP request doesn't do anything unless you make it. Don't make it do stupid things. Simple. Ryan Gaul -- Homer: Aw, Marge, kids, I miss my club. Marge: Oh, Homey. You know, you are a member of a very exclusive club. Homer: The Black Panthers? Homer the Great