Good Question!
I have been asking myself that.
And what is introspection but the programatic access to the IDL/Description/Interface?
Here is what I found.
Please excuse all the links, but this is just raw data:
ALIDI: http://www.xmlrpc.com/alidl
"I've been staring with incomprehension at various Interface Definition Languages (or IDLs) for XML-over-HTTP protocols, and wondering why they're so complicated. I thought it might have something to do with the kinds of languages and editing environments they're designed for. To find out where the disconnect is, I decided to define a simple interface definition language in XML that's suitable for scripting environments, and see if people find holes in its functionality, or if it's useful, or something we want to do. That's why I called this ALIDL, so no one could confuse it with the efforts of a standards body. It's little and human-readable. The goal is to have it work with scripting systems that are wired up to XML-RPC or SOAP 1.1."
WSDL : http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl
"WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints are combined into abstract endpoints (services). WSDL is extensible to allow description of endpoints and their messages regardless of what message formats or network protocols are used to communicate, however, the only bindings described in this document describe how to use WSDL in conjunction with SOAP 1.1, HTTP GET/POST, and MIME."
There was an interesting discussion :
http://discuss.develop.com/archives/wa.exe?A2=ind0103&L=soap&F=&S=&P=10924
"Why do I focus on this model? WSDL is machine-readable documentation for
the interface to a service. I think the most common scenario is that
services are advertised with WSDL descriptions as an aide to building (1)
clients that can access the service and (2) implementations of the
service. As a simple example elaborated from the SOAP specification
itself, let's assume that some organization in the financial industry
comes up with a standard WSDL description of a "getStockQuote" service
interface. It tells you that some particular SOAP call with a company
name and dates as arguments will get you stock quotes. If I am writing
applications that need stock quotes, I can use the WSDL at design time to
help me write the code. If I am at Fidelity or Schwab, and I wish to
offer stock quotes, then the WSDL can help me build conformant
implementations."
Here they talk of binding WSDL and XMLRPC
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/ws-dev/802713
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/ws-dev/802991
"
> I'm interested in getting SOAP to be universal, rather than supporting
> "legacy" XMLRPC. I'd rather not see new xmlrpc services appear. I
> don't know about ZOPE or Meerkat, but everything UserLand does these
> days is dual-stack, I think. (I'm not positive, I can only take so much
> of Dave Winer :) I'd discourage people from deploying new xmlrpc
> services, unless they intend them to have a finite lifetime. I think
> the OSS world should "get on the bus" and move forward to SOAP
> full-throttle, and not be distracted by other protocols.
>
> But all of that is just my opinion.
And it is a little late for that. XMLRPC based web services are and will
be getting deployed. If for no other reason, because it is much easier to
wrap your head around XMLRPC than SOAP today. And the people comfortable
with xmlrpc are likely to continue using it. I know that is a low-tech
reason, but it is human nature to go with the simple known tech that looks
like it will solve the problem in place of the unknown complex-looking
tech."
UDDI: http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/uddi.html
"The Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) project "creates a platform-independent, open framework for describing services, discovering businesses, and integrating business services using the Internet, as well as an operational registry that is available today."
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Redman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Donnerstag, 7. März 2002 18:38
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Interceptors/Introspection patch
On a vaguely related note, is there any standardized way to express the
interfaces. That is, how do I give my interface to a C++ (PHP, VB, etc.
etc.) programmer? This would need to include more than is in the XML-RPC
spec., that is, to say a method returns an "array" is insufficient if you
can't describe the array.
I suppose that there are lots of possibilities, a DTD, IDL file, etc. etc.
but is there a standard or standard industry practice for XML-RPC?
Jim
--
Jim Redman
(505) 662 5156
http://www.ergotech.com
