On Friday 10 June 2011, Reed elucidated thus: > The reason that the adWords SOAP interface, and the usefulness of the > various client libraries in trying to abstract out some of the > intricacies of the interface, is because AdWords itself is in fact a > complex beast. Some parts are very simple, especially those > operations that are GETs, and so I can see your point about SOAP > seeming to be overkill. But many operations are not so simple, and I > cannot imagine easily implementing them as REST services. What if I > want to create 1000 ads - that's one heck of a REST call!
I'm not sure I see it being any bigger of a REST call than then creation of 1,000 ads via a SOAP call. A SOAP bulk call with 1,000 ads, with all their name space declarations, open/close tags, etc. would actually be a must larger post operation than a JSON list of 1,000 objects (ads) and their members. REST doesn't necessarily means small payloads, it's just a different way of representing services available. For example: Microsoft AdCenter has a REST API...that uses XML payloads! :) But, by appending format=json to your query string, you can use JSON payloads that have a somewhat similar structure (lists and dicts/hashes) to the XML payloads. It's actually a fairly elegant system. > The stated need to be able to more easily build a JavaScript > interface using REST rather than SOAP helps put this request in > focus, because it distinguishes the desired use of the api from that > of the backend production systems that many of us have been building > to service large numbers of accounts with large numbers of keywords, > ads, etc. Even for back-end work, a REST/JSON API would be simpler...for me, anyway. :) No intention to build a JS client at the moment. I still want to program in Python...I just don't want to deal with SOAP. :) Consuming the MS AdCenter REST services has been much easier than dealing with AdCenter's or AdWord's SOAP API. Just my thoughts. j -- Joshua Kugler Part-Time System Admin/Programmer http://www.eeinternet.com - Fairbanks, AK PGP Key: http://pgp.mit.edu/ ID 0x73B13B6A -- =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~ Also find us on our blog and discussion group: http://adwordsapi.blogspot.com http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AdWords API Forum" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api?hl=en
