On Wed, 16 Nov 2005, Bryan Barkley wrote:
> To the Laszlo Mail team - great job! The app looks really slick and the
> performance seems great.
Thanks! We plan to improve performance more in the next few months, but
we've definitely spent a lot of time on it already.
> I was wondering if someone on the team could comment on the thinking behind
> the choices that were made for the data transfer method. Looking at the data
> going back and forth between Flash and the server it looks like you chose
> the basic HTTP GET/POST method with XML responses. I'm curious why that
> method was chosen over JavaRPC/SOAP/XML-RPC.
For a few reasons.
1. SOAP sucks
2. JavaRPC sucks
3. XML-RPC sucks
4. REST is really simple to rapidly develop and test and it doesn't
tie to you any back-end frameworks. We could use Java, PHP, perl,
whatever, and development time for any of these isn't weighed down
by the communication protocol.
Going with a REST interface made our life pretty easy: you could test
individual calls from a web browser with a simple URL. Also, LZX is so
good at consuming raw XML that client prototyping and development against
these results was quick/simple.
> My understanding is that the RPC methods do binary encoding and compression
> which could result in a more efficient client. On the other hand basic HTTP
> data xfer should allow the app to be deployed in SOLO mode without requiring
> the LPS. Did these two factors weigh into the decision at all?
Laszlo Mail development predated SOLO mode, but it is a nice side benefit.
And really, this kind of XML response gzips pretty well so the bandwidth
differences aren't very important.
> I'm curious to hear from the team - my current project involves a lot of
> client/server data transfer and I'd rather switch our protocol earlier in
> the process rather than later.
Personally -- not speaking for Laszlo here -- I think SOAP will be history
within a year or two. It's too painful to use and doesn't actually do
what it's supposed to do real well. It made sense at the time but it's
the wrong tool for the job.
What protocol are you using? And why'd you choose it? I'm curious.
gse
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