SOAP is one way to approach multi-platform issues. There are certainly other approaches. Folks who are just concerned about multiple hardware/OS platforms often work in Java. Since one can obtain a JVM for almost any platform, this allows all code for all platforms to be written once and shared. RMI then provides a simple means for communication between different physical machines. To support multiple programming languages on multiple hardware/OS platforms, it is sometimes reasonable to communicate between the platforms using TCP/IP for the transport and use home-grown data marshalling. The amount of marshalling code that must be written increases with the number of programming languages supported. The big rub with this method is when you must interoperate with third party software, or if security must be added. In those cases, one probably should turn to SOAP or a typically more expensive solution such as CORBA. I have used them all. They all work, and they all require programmers to do work, although CORBA and SOAP, by virtue of IDL and WSDL, allow some otherwise boring and repetitive work to be done by automated tools. Today, I mainly rely on SOAP where I am concerned about interoperating with third-party applications. Almost any organization can get someone to write a SOAP client in some programming language.
SOAP, or at least its layered functionality, is still very much under development when compared to a mature technology such as CORBA. It is not clear that right now it is the proper technology for an application such as described by Omar Bennani. The messages he describes sending from his "server" to his "client" would be best modelled in SOAP as one-way messages. In this case, the "client" would act as a SOAP server, while the "server" would act as a SOAP client. In most SOAP implementations, the SOAP server is an application running in a Web server. It is not clear that Omar would want his "client" applications running in a Web server. Knowing only what Omar has posted, my personal approach would be to have the "client" open a socket on which to listen, and have the "server" connect to that socket and send the message when it needed to. I don't program in Delphi, but I assume that like Java and .NET, it includes libraries to make socket work easy. This would leave the task of data marshalling. It can be tedious code to write and is why environments with interface descriptions (such as IDL and WSDL) that allow a tool to automatically write the marshalling code are so nice. Scott Nichol Do not send e-mail directly to this e-mail address, because it is filtered to accept only mail from specific mail lists. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Devraj Mukherjee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 7:53 PM Subject: Re: client/server application > Hi Scott, > > Cross platform is one of the reasons we are choosing SOAP. > > Devraj > > -- > Eternity Technologies Pty. Ltd. ACN 107 600 975 > P O Box 5949 Wagga Wagga NSW 2650 Australia > Voice: +61-2-69255866 / Fax: +61-2-69251039 > http://www.eternitytechnologies.com/ > > > > Scott Nichol wrote: > > Do you have a reason to use SOAP for this application? For example, do you > > need to publish an API for third party applications? If your scenario will > > involve only applications you have written, I encourage you to consider > > non-SOAP solutions. For fairly simple custom purposes as your application > > seems, I usually just write code at the socket level. > > > > Scott Nichol > > > > Do not send e-mail directly to this e-mail address, > > because it is filtered to accept only mail from > > specific mail lists. > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Omar Bennani" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: <[email protected]> > > Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 1:06 PM > > Subject: client/server application > > > > > > > >>Hi > >>I have to developpe a client/server application: a > >>server that is executing on a server machin, send at > >>each laps of time data to the client to display. > >>Is it an application that i can develope whith soap? > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >>_____________________________________________________________________________ > >> > >>D�couvrez le nouveau Yahoo! Mail : 1 Go d'espace de stockage pour vos > >>mails, photos et vid�os ! > >>Cr�ez votre Yahoo! Mail sur http://fr.mail.yahoo.com > >> > > > > > >
