> Thursday, October 24, 2002, 12:23:04 PM, you wrote: >>> Web Services != replacement for COM. >>> >>>Not by a long shot.
> DW> It certainly works well as a replacement for DCOM; while it might not > DW> replace everything that COM does now, it can certainly replace some of > it. > DW> SOAP, or something SOAP-like, could certainly replace a lot of the > rest of > DW> COM; you just have to figure out what you'll use for inter-process > DW> communication. So, I'm not sure if it's really the long shot that you > think. > It's a physical impossibility to pass xml data as efficiently as > passing data over a COM interface. I accept that SOAP is a viable > replacement for DCOM, but not COM itself. > Especially when with all the "industries investment in Java" that is > supposed to be a big reason we love Java now, nobody in Javaland has > come up with as efficient an interface as MSXML. Just the thought of > using a web service to parse/and receive/send XML is laughable to me. It is the natural progression, however. Speed / Efficiency is not the big selling point of xml web services. They've been designed / developed and implemented with the reasonable assumption that speed will continue to be less and less an issue as time passes. In the past 50-60 years speed, memory and storage have all continued to become less and less an issue in computing and there's no reason to believe the same won't continue. In a few years, the fact that web services were slow in the now will be completely moot. What will remain ( after their speed is no longer an issue ) is what they do provide, which is ( from what I understand ) a more flexible / dynamic and easier to develop method of moving and transforming data / content and separating it from format or platform. Case in point: Does anybody here particularly care that MS Word 2000 would be slow as hell on an old 286? ( That is assuming an old 286 would even support it. ) For that matter, I remember some machines with boot cycles of 5 minutes or longer from as shortly ago as 1995 and Windows 95. Or for that matter waiting 30 minutes or an hour to download a reasonably small file from a BBS on my old monochrome DataGeneral and NEC laptops that I got hand-me-downed from my dad. Software is invariably developed "before its time"... That is the nature of the business ( or perhaps even human nature ) that innovation occurs because things that are not practical now are implemented now anyway and then made practical by further development because the innovators are able to see the potential. If everybody waited until everything were fast and easy, nobody would make any money and the industry would go nowhere. Everyone would be waiting on everyone else to produce something faster, more efficient, etc. But those things would never be developed because the companies trying to develop them would never have the money to develop and produce them as a result of never getting sales because their customers are waiting for the product to improve. This doesn't by any means indicate that everyone needs to be a forerunner and jump onto every new technology before it's practical -- this would be suicide. But those with the ability to work with a few new technologies before they are practical have the advantage of being early and getting a bigger piece of that new market. I often still wish the industry would evolve a bit slower than it does, but that's admittedly my own personal hangup, and it has more to do with economic equality ( if there is such a thing ) and "the digital divide" than with anything else. </dissertation> S. Isaac Dealey Certified Advanced ColdFusion 5 Developer www.turnkey.to 954-776-0046 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/cf_talk FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Signup for the Fusion Authority news alert and keep up with the latest news in ColdFusion and related topics. http://www.fusionauthority.com/signup.cfm
