OAGIS message are just XML files, and can be sent over whatever
transport protocol. The code in OFBiz sends them via HTTPS, which is
the most common form of synchronous transfer. They are written to get
asynchronous responses though, so doing it via a message broker would
work well too.
In general they are not SOAP, but you could call them REST using the
lame/common meaning of it. Really they are more of the "POX" style, ie
"Plain Old XML".
This sort of thing makes a lot more business sense, IMO, than
something that tries to do object mapping and such like SOAP is mostly
meant for (and really hard to use without those sorts of tools). In
OFBiz we just make the messages with a template (using FTL to generate
XML, just like we use it to generate HTML), and then have Java code to
consume the XML coming in (though I'd like to extend simple methods to
do that).
So, there is nothing to build for this... ie the tools are already in
place and examples of them in various places, especially the oagis
component.
Stepping back a little bit... when you're talking about integration it
mostly depends on the constraints of the other system. If there are no
constraints then I'd recommend focusing on message format standards
(like OAGIS or UBL) instead of transport protocol and formatting
standards like SOAP, REST, etc. You can write stuff that conforms to
those lower level standards all you want, but significant work will
still be required to use those messages with other systems that use
the same technologies because the data structures, ie message format,
are totally different (and possibly not reconcilable without
encumbering and limiting the business).
-David
On Mar 10, 2009, at 1:40 PM, Vince M. Clark wrote:
Very helpful, thank you.
As you may have noticed from recent threads we have been working
with Axis. To date we have only used SOAP. Our client just informed
us that they want to standardize on REST, which seems easy enough to
do with Axis. As we started down this path we came across the blog
post I referenced claiming "How NOT to do RESTful web services"
which raised some concerns.
Interesting that you mentioned OAGIS, as our client also stated that
they want to standardize on this for transporting documents across
systems. So I guess the question is, what is our best path? Continue
with Axis, or make/fund/wait for changes to the OFBiz service
engine. Either way I intend to leverage what has already been
established in the OAGIS component.
----- Original Message -----
From: "David E Jones" <david.jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>
To: user@ofbiz.apache.org
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 2:27:44 PM (GMT-0600) America/Chicago
Subject: Re: restful web services
Yes, the term "REST" and it's cousin "REST-ful" are some of my least
favorite these days. They were watered down and misinterpreted from
day 1. The concept of them has been around for years, but people
started applying it to everything that isn't SOAP, which is just
silly.
The thing to keep in mind with REST that most tools ignore is the
separation of verbs and nouns. The "nouns" are addressable resources
and verbs are used to interact with the nouns... with various verbs
mapped to the exist HTTP request type (ie GET, POST, etc).
I like the idea of separation of verbs and nouns (which OAGIS does a
decent job of, and with a set of nouns that is much more business
friendly), but most of the REST ideas are rather... limiting. They are
fine for CrUD types of operations, but not much more given the limited
set of available verbs.
Still, the theory is somewhat irrelevant since the common usage of the
term "REST" has been reduced to near meaningless. Sometimes it seems
that people like to seem fancy, but all too often can live up to the
fanciness they created for themselves.
Anyway, for OFBiz the main concept from REST and OAGIS that we might
consider implementing is support in the service engine for a
separation of verbs and nouns. We have common service naming patterns
that we use in a de-facto sort of way, like the service
"createProduct" which has the noun "Product" and the verb "create". It
would be cool if the service definition supported this sort of 2-part
naming, and with a way to associate nouns to entities when applicable
(and of course nouns could be things other than entities, like XML
schemas or whatever).
I'm not sure that is helpful commentary, but there are some thoughts
on the issue anyway (which I've been following with agonized
fascination for a while).
-David
On Mar 10, 2009, at 12:41 PM, Vince M. Clark wrote:
This blog is arguing that Axis2 doesn't do true RESTful web
services. I'm interested in thoughts and comments from the community.
http://atmanes.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-not-to-do-restful-web-services.html
