REST is fine for small communications but really isn't a very good solution for large and complex communication. SOAP is the 600 pound gorilla. Usually I use XML-RPC because it's sort of the middle ground. I usually use REST mostly for simple services that just need a simple trigger and response - often stuff I want to run from cron jobs. I save SOAP for the rare job that REST or XML-RPC can't do although in those cases I usually stop to consider if I'm making the problem more complex than it needs to be.REST is the new SOAP. Yaml is the new XML. I'm guessing this news just hasn't made it into any PHP frameworks yet.
YAML doesn't seem significantly easier (faster & less intensive) to parse than XML, it doesn't seem as flexible as XML, and it's less familiar for developers to work with so I don't really see the benefit. It seems to exist entirely because some people didn't like the way XML looked. It might be slightly smaller than XML but that's hardly an issue since you can always compress your data. YAML fits in the same boat as people pushing binary XML. It doesn't really make a lot of sense. It's almost always cheaper to throw more CPU time at a problem than man hours and YAML is less obvious to work with than XML so it doesn't make business sense. If you really want something fast and non-intensive to parse then use tab-separated values or something similar.
-- Michael McGlothlin Southwest Plumbing Supply
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