Hi Davanum, I still feel we have a miscommunication. After being a hard-core developer for 25 years, I actually don't need that much community support - I identified my problems and began working the solutions, and the community did indeed help.
My point is that a corporate java software developer (on a quarterly software release cycle) who is given SOAP work - has to look at the api in question and make a decision: 1. create and transmit/parse strings of xml, or 2. try to use a tool. And the consensus at this co. is that the tools lengthen the time it takes to complete the mission as opposed to decreasing it. You can pick any reason for this you want. Server config problems, software bugs, learning-curve etc. etc. But at the end of the day 'tools' have to help. We've used a lot of tools. We've tried all kinds of options to make this easier. And it still (usually) takes longer than reading the wsdl and reading/writing strings of xml. I can see your reponse coming! - Don't complain! - Contribute - And Davanum I swear, if I had any extra time - I would - but right now I don't. But to those who do have the time/effort/energy/enthusiam/skills to work on open soruce projects - Be aware, that the tool has to REALLY help the rest of the developers or - all your effort just falls into a black hole. If you had fore-knowledge of the future - and could see that the 'tool' (pick one) you are working on was destined for abandonment - would you work so hard on it? We use a LOT of soap services - the tools are hindering more than helping. Take that one sentence, and wherever raw power vs. ease-of-use conflict choose in favor of ease-of-use. Then figure out how to get the power in there anyway. I apologize beforehand, if I've said or done anything to offend you Davanum. It was certainly not my intent. Thanks for lisening, Kurt Kurt Olsen | Software Engineer| EzRez Software, Inc. 3465 Waialae Avenue, Suite 200 | Honolulu | HI | 96816 p 808-735-9260 x 238 | f 808-748-0488 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.ezrez.com This message may contain confidential information. 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The views and opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of EzRez Software, except when the sender expressly and with authority states them to be so. -----Original Message----- From: Davanum Srinivas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 5:07 PM To: axis-user@ws.apache.org Cc: axis-dev@ws.apache.org Subject: Re: I give up Kurt, Looking at your postings, i don't see much from you in terms of engaging the user or developer community to ask for help. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=axis-dev&w=2&r=1&s=olsen&q=b http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=axis-user&w=2&r=1&s=olsen&q=b Your specific email to Tom (http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=axis-dev&m=112801670512125&w=2)...i have no clue how to help. i did reply back to a prev mail on that thread (http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=axis-dev&m=112692662128194&w=2) If you have a problem with Macromedia or eBay folks, We can't really help. If you have a problem with latest releases of Axis, we can help if you add JIRA bugs (and chase us!) on the axis-dev@ list. If you need production/development support, there are avenues for that as well. Am sorry you had a bad experience, thanks for the feedback. -- dims On 10/27/05, Kurt Olsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Folks, I hate to say it but I had to ditch axis. Way too difficult. And we > won't be using it in the future. > > > > Our application has approx 30 vendors we communicate with using SOAP. > > Approx 25 of them are implemented by simply creating strings and firing them > off, then parsing out the reply. > > Primitive but fairly easy to do. > > > > The other 5 used axis. At the moment we're using the ColdFusion server. When > we upgraded to java 5 and coldfusion mx7 our axis based connectors broke. > > It took approximately 2 weeks to diagnose and 'solve' the problem. Axis used > commons-logging, and commons-logging broke. That required fairly > > major surgery to the coldfusion classpath. Pieces of commons-logging we're > coming in off of different classloaders. > > > > So technically speaking, commons-logging broke - not axis but...since axis > brought the flaw to life, and has given us grief (probably the CF > integration) in the past, it is axis that got the bad reputation due to the > fact that it was at the top of the food chain. The two weeks solving this > problem wasn't totally wasted because it exposed a fairly large flaw in the > overall architecture. > > > > After getting the existing connectors to work again, I had to turn my > attention to the next connector in the pipeline - eBay via Soap.. > > Only one problem - eBay's sdk is written against java 1.4 and axis 1.1 - > while we upgraded to java 5 and axis 1.2 > > After another week of trying various 'workarounds' etc I was forced to give > up and will have to communicate with eBay using the "create strings" > technique. > > > > Bottom line is that the overall cost of the 'SOAP' system and it's co-horts > in crime is un-managable given our quarterly release cycle. > > I'm disappointed that after all that effor to modernize - the goal really > wasn't accomplished. > > > > I fully understand the various issues involved, most of which aren't really > axis's fault but - any way I slice it this entire exercise felt exactly like > trying to use the J2EE 1.3/1.4 ejb specifications. Big, confusing, hard to > use etc...And I predict will eventually be abandoned (or at least buried > beneath a convienence API). > > > > This is just one co's experience of course but I submit to you that as you > continue your development you might want to consider the overall 'cost' that > SOAP and it's tools are exacting on the community. This simply has to get > easier because as it stands both the other developers (who watched over my > shoulder so to speak) and myself have simply given up on an 'easy' tool fix. > Our experience is that SOAP is a diaster and costing virtually everyone in > corporate programming a lot of money and lost sleep.. > > > > Thanks for listening, and please remember that I'm taking the time to write > this not to complain (well, maybe a little) but to provide feedback from the > field. > > > > Respectfully, > > Kurt Olsen > > > > > > -- Davanum Srinivas : http://wso2.com/blogs/
