I would say there's more than that. Web services are self-descriptive, so your WS consumers can know what they are supposed to send. If the platform hosting the WSDL doesn't describe itself (aka CFC Explorer), you can use 3rd party tools to interpret the WSDL or try reading it yourself. Form posting requires documents to be posted or sent between developers for the same transfer of info.
Additionally, in most platforms, you can call a web service programmatically without managing http connections and creating a form to post. Generally, you would create a stub object and call methods on that stub, which handles the low-level communication automatically. This makes the whole process a lot simpler for the ws consumer. Finally, there is stronger data typing in web services than you will find in a form-posting solution. On a form post, your ID field (a numeric) can be sent as "123abc" and you have no control over it. You have to double-check on the server-side. On a web service, that field would be guaranteed to be numeric. Checking is done on the client (consumer) side without having to hit your back-end server. I know there's a few other advantages that I missed, and thinks I'm skipping like web services being standards based, and even the preferred method of working in .NET. Passing Complex data types (though wddx can do some of that). ehh, that's all I can think of. That being said, there are a few negatives. Web services are verbose, and may cause more traffic on your network. The overhead of having data translation done automatically for you can cause a bottleneck. In CF, this means invoking the Axis framework and doing a lot of work to host and consume a web service. You won't notice it on a small scale, but when you get more clients accessing your service, you may find you need more servers. -nathan strutz http://www.dopefly.com/ Matthew Small wrote: > There's really not much difference at all, other than the resulting output > is not XML unless he made it that way. A web service is just passing one > string of information to a form and getting back one string with all of the > resulting information. I used to do this with WDDX in CF 4.5 when I needed > to have my local intranet speak to my remote host on a nightly basis. > > > Matthew Small > Web Developer > American City Business Journals > 704-973-1045 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -----Original Message----- > From: Russ Michaels [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 5:15 AM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: Cfhttp vs web services > > I recently had an interesting question from one of our developers that I > had a hard time answering. > > Had had an app that required web services, but it was written in CF5, so > rather than move to CFMX, he just wrote a bunch of pages that could have > forms posted to them, with the commands in the form fields. Then accessed > this from elsewhere using CFHTTP. > > He then said, what is the difference between doing this and using web > services, what would the web services allow him to do that he had not done > with this solution. And to be honest I really can't think of a good reason > why he should have used CFMX web services instead, as this does produce the > same result and can be used form any of the other platforms. Whereas if we > had used a CFMX web service, I know we likley would have had problems with > SOAP requests. > > russ > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Logware (www.logware.us): a new and convenient web-based time tracking application. Start tracking and documenting hours spent on a project or with a client with Logware today. Try it for free with a 15 day trial account. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=67 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:214404 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
