This Weeks Giveaway

[Carl Trusiak]

This week we are giving away 4 copies of "Building Web Services: Making Sense of XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI" and the Authors Steve Graham and Doug Davis are online to answer your questions
Let's all welcome Steve and Doug!
Thanks to Sams Publishing for the books

[Doug Davis]

Just a test...
-Dug

[Pres Brawner]

Sign me up! I could use another book.

[faisal mahmood]

Hi,
Is this a new book? Also how about information about vendors (WebServices implementors)
Faisal

[Stephen Graham]

Faisal:
The book does have a chapter devoted to vendors and tooling. This is a rapidly evolving field. A good resource to keep in touch with what is happening in the Vendor space of Web services is www.webservices.org.
sgg

Originally posted by faisal mahmood:
Hi,
Is this a new book? Also how about information about vendors (WebServices implementors)
Faisal

[Max Tomlinson]

Hi all-
I'm wondering how your book addresses handling complex types and Interfaces usign Java and Web Services as this is where I found the IBM WSDK lacking (Beta, mind you). In an attempted prototype, we were able to marshall only primitives, not objects and it seemed that the ability to represent an interface, something we needed for a project that has over 160 subclasses of a business object, was also not possible.
thanks,
Max Tomlinson

[mc lam]

me too. Thanks

[Stephen Graham]

Max:
The Axis WSDL support does handle complex types, to a certain degree. The state of the art of WSDL tooling is still maturing, as a result, the book is constrained by the current tool set for the most part.
With respect to object modelling in WSDL, this is a bigger problem. There is no convenient way to express this in WSDL. PortType inheritance does not exist (unfortunately). The only way around this that I have heard of is to use multiple port elements under a service.
So...
if I have 3 portTypes: Super, Middle, and Sub, and corresponding 3 bindings superBinding, middleBinding and subBinding, then I would define a service with 3 ports:
<service name="inheritanceHack">
<port name="superPort" binding="superBinding">
<soap:address location="http://someaddr/>
</port>
<port name="middlePort" binding="middleBinding">
<soap:address location="http://someaddr/> (note: same address)
</port>
<port name="subPort" binding="middleBinding">
<soap:address location="http://someaddr/> (note: same address)
</port>
</service>
Now, this will have the effect that the resource located at http://someaddr will have the transitive closure of all the operations defined in the three portTypes. Very weak inheritance, furthermore the ordering of inheritance is not defined. Most tooling won't recognize this service element as representing inheritance. WSDL spec is vague with respect to how to interpret the collection of port elements under a service element.
That is ugly, but as close as WSDL gets.
sgg
------------------
sgg

[Fei Ng]

welcome to javaranch author Steve and Doug!

[Kyle Brown]

Originally posted by Max Tomlinson:
Hi all-
I'm wondering how your book addresses handling complex types and Interfaces usign Java and Web Services as this is where I found the IBM WSDK lacking (Beta, mind you). In an attempted prototype, we were able to marshall only primitives, not objects and it seemed that the ability to represent an interface, something we needed for a project that has over 160 subclasses of a business object, was also not possible.
thanks,
Max Tomlinson

I should mention to you that the new IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer tool does handle complex types, even with Apache SOAP 2.2. I'm sure Steve could give you the details of how the standard serialization works. You should try it out...
Kyle

------------------
Kyle Brown,
Author of Enterprise Java (tm) Programming with IBM Websphere
See my homepage at http://members.aol.com/kgb1001001 for other WebSphere information.

[Fei Ng]

Dear authors,
What is the book intended for?? developers, professionals, beginner?
I have no background on SOAP , WDSL, UDDI but i would really
like to read the topics.

[Stephen Graham]

Fei:
The book is aimed at developers and designers. The book takes the reader through an introduction to what Web services is all about, does a tour through the important aspects of XML needed for Web services, we then discuss SOAP, the Apache Axis implementation of SOAP. We then have a chapter dedicated to other e-business aspects of Web services (such as security). We then cover WSDL, UDDI and then discuss other vendors approaches. The book finishes with a tour of "what the future holds" for Web services
Pretty comprehensive overview, it should be good to get any developer started.
sgg
------------------
sgg.
Author of "Building Web services with Java" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672321815/104-9025316-6753534

[Andy Rodriguez]

Quick question/s -
1.Aimed at developers and designers using J2EE platform or .Net as well ?
2. Any Platform specific IDE being used throughout the book to depict the examples ? The reason i am asking this is coz http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/compare/webservicecompare.asp
3. Aimed at Beginner / Intermediate / Advanced level readers ?
( does that show i am addicted to wrox ? hate it when they classify readers )

[Fei Ng]

Stephen.

Thanks for your fast reply.
The book sounds promising.

[Tom Ben]

I am new to the SOAP discussion so can someone fill me in?
------------------
Sun Certified Programmer on the Java 2 Platform

[Balaji Loganathan]

WelCome!! Steve Graham and Doug Davis..
Hope you will have a nice time with us.
Regards
Balaji

Originally posted by Carl Trusiak:
This week we are giving away 4 copies of "Building Web Services: Making Sense of XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI" and the Authors Steve Graham and Doug Davis are online to answer your questions
Let's all welcome Steve and Doug!
Thanks to Sams Publishing for the books

[Kyle Brown]

I know I've told you this privately already but welcome to JavaRanch, Steve. I hope you decide to hang around.
Kyle
------------------
Kyle Brown,
Author of Enterprise Java (tm) Programming with IBM Websphere
See my homepage at http://members.aol.com/kgb1001001 for other WebSphere information.

[Kishore Dandu]

Hello Authors,
Does the book have any free tools to learn the soap stuff.
If I spend around 4 hours a day on this, how long do you think it would take to be a master in it.
Thanks,
Kishore.

[Fei Ng]

Hi authors,
Is there a sample chapter that we can get a feel of the book?
I already went to the Sams web sites there isn't much info
on it.

thanks.

[Pho Tek]

(1) sending complex types
With respect to SOAP2.2, I have had no problems sending
complex types - so long as the primitive types that
make up the complex types have a valid (de)serializer. What I've not attempted are objects with circular references.
(2) Polymorphism
I think the hard part is how to send polymorphic types.
Assuming some interface IParam with two realizations
in ParamA and ParamB. Do I write my webservice as:

public void doSomething( IParam )

..or overload them

public void doSomething( ParamA )
public void doSomething( ParamB )

Does Axis support the former ?
(3) WSDL requirement
Does Axis require WSDL in order to work ? i.e. When writing
an Axis client.
(4) WS-I (inspection)
In summary, what problem is WS-I trying to solve
that's not solve by WSDL ?
Thanks
Pho
[This message has been edited by Pho Tek (edited November 07, 2001).]

[faisal mahmood]

Dear authors,
How much depth on webservices, SOAP and integration with other languages cover in the book.
Is there a table of content and sample chapter available?
Thank you,
Faisal

[faisal mahmood]

I was looking through the amazon comments - it is a must book for anyone... coming straight from IBM.
Faisal

[faisal mahmood]

Dear authors,
Is the book "Building Web Services: Making Sense of XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI" published yet? The Amazon site has a publication date of December 7, 2001.
Regards,
Faisal

[Theodore Casser]

Well, even if it's not published yet, I think that web services and all the related standards aren't going to dry up between now and then.
Not that Amazon isn't ever wrong (they're frequently), but still, the 7th is only a month away. I'm sure the winners can wait that long.

[faisal mahmood]

I would wait for it if I win this. Also, since I live in Sydney - more time is added for shipping.
Let's see who wins it.
Faisal

[Fei Ng]

Good luck guys!!!
few more hours then we know..