[REBOL] Re: Google + SOAP
From: gavin_mckenzie:fastmail:fm at: 20-Apr-2002 18:10
Christian,
On Sat, 20 Apr 2002 17:49:48 +0200, "Christian Langreiter"
<[chris--langreiter--com]> said:
[snip]
> XML and the XML-related standards are basically a set of
> representational
> constraints, as is every language. REBOL, when used purely as data
> representation language (i.e. without any of its
> non-declarative/procedural/functional capabilities), is indeed very
> similar
> in capabilities to XML.
Indeed.
> What lacks, for example, is Unicode,
Yes...lack of Unicode support in REBOL is something that I've always
found extremely surprising.
> but otherwise
> you can most easily translate any piece of XML into a REBOL
> representation.
> "But I can do that as well with Java!", you'll say
Actually, I wouldn't say that. Or, at least I wasn't implying that.
I was trying to figure out what Carl was saying. I expect that he was
musing about a Do-Google-Search function that accepted a single block
parameter expressing the Google-API parameters as set-word/value pairs.
This presumably isn't much different than a C++/Java method
doGoogleSearch(...) except that with REBOL you have the ability to name
your parameters, which is something that I *do* like very much.
I wasn't looking to compare REBOL to other languages; that's an
invitation to a flame-fest, and besides...I do love REBOL.
> , and right you are, after
> all, that's the point of XML. However - and that is the critical point,
> IMO,
> if you look at the REBOL representation and the Java object
> serialization
> side-by-side, you'll see that while the resulting serialization is
> practically incomprehensible to humans without tool support, the REBOL
> one
> is actually simpler than the XML form we started with.
True...but I assume that Carl's (imaginary?) Do-Google-Search function
is going to produce an XML/SOAP message anyway, given that this is the
requirement of the Google API. He's not actually going to drop a REBOL
block or object on the line and ship it out to Google, unless he's
persuaded Google to provide a REBOL interface. That *would* be cool,
but I don't think that's where this is going. So, again, I don't
believe we were talking about REBOL as serialization format; his code
fragment clearly (to me) looks like a function that accepts a block as
a param. Did I misread the code?
Certainly he seemed to be comparing some REBOL code to an XML
serialization format of a SOAP message. Hence, my confusion and issue
about comparing apples and oranges.
Carl's messages can sometimes (often?) be a tease, sometimes Yoda-like.
I don't think this one is any different.
> <person>
> <name>Chris</name>
> <age>22</age>
> </person>
>
> person [name "Chris" age 22]
>
There have been (somewhat misguided) efforts by some to create an even
simpler alternative to XML. Some LISP/Schema people (to which REBOL
bears a resemblance) dis' XML and yearn for a S-expr solution.
You could just as easily create an XML fragment like:
<person name="Chris" age="22"/>
That doesn't seem worse (to me) than the REBOL syntax. But again, I
wasn't looking to be drawn into a comparison game. If anything, I was
troubled that Carl might be engaging in a comparison game.
> BTW, at http://www.langreiter.com/rebol/google/ you can find a simple
> wrapper around some functions the Google API provides, along with
> useful
> features like result caching.
>
Cool. I'll check it out.
> If you're interested in SOAP, you might also be interested in XML-RPC,
> which
> is the simpler predecessor of SOAP (and avoids practically all of the
> problems SOAP people have to cope with due to the higher level of
> complexity).
Yes, though XML-RPC has issues of its own. And there are those, under
the banner of "REST", that belive this whole XML-RPC / SOAP business is
folly; that the HTTP verbs of GET/PUT/POST/DELETE combined with URIs
are sufficent and superior.
See Paul Prescod's article at:
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/02/06/rest.html
>[snip]
>
Gavin.
--
Gavin McKenzie
http://www3.sympatico.ca/gavin.mckenzie
[gavin_mckenzie--fastmail--fm]
http://fastmail.fm
