Hi Darrell Ok - first do you want to drop XML or just SOAP? Have you considered XML-RPC (remote procedure calls)? This is essentially a simpler version. SOAP built on this and really has suffered from scope creep which seems to be the source of developers difficulties. It basically allows you to make procedure calls over HTTP using XML. Have a look at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/index.html for some more info is interested.
Of course there is still CORBA, if you are familiar with it! Not to mention raw text (or other similar) over HTTP. Just to give you a flavour of an alternative approach, taken a good while ago, here is what we did then (pre-XML). Based on an application I was involved in the early days of Java with a Java client (also a VB client) we had to keep the medium of communication neutral as talk of different client formats was being considered. The best option (then for us) was to rely on the underlying protocol - HTTP. Once the format of messages exchanged was agreed, anyone could have built a client in most suitable languages (Java, VB, C++, Powerbuilder etc). Our message exchange was fairly low level but did the trick for us. Client requests were HTTP post requests with data enclosed in the body of the request. This was text based and our first request parameter was "action" indicating the request. On the server side, the request was mapped to an appropriate handler (based on the action parameter) who extracted the rest of the info (if required) from the request. Data was returned as a standard HTTP response with data enclosed - text based again. We used properties files and csv style files usually depending on the returned data with the HTTP status code indicating is the request was successful. The request wrapping and unwrapping API developed could be shared between the server and java client, though other clients (eg VB) had to rewrite it. This essentially hid the nature of the communication into an object oriented API that was easy to work with. Here is where the good documentation is essential. While a far cry from todays practises it worked. You could consider exchanging XML-RPC over HTTP. Hope this helps, Andrew Pro Java Servlets 2.3 http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/186100561X To change your membership options, refer to: http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm
