Microsoft .NET XML Web Services - 30 Oct 2009

PRObooks

Microsoft .NET XML Web Services

With therelease of Visual Studio .NET, XML Web Services have become a fact ofdevelopers' lives. For those who have yet to get their feet wet with this hottechnology, Microsoft .NET XML Web Services conveys the what, why, andhow of applying Web services.

The bookquickly introduces simple examples designed to create that "aha!" moment whenreaders realize the world Web Services can create. All Visual Basic .NET codesamples are translated into their C# counterparts, making this book accessibleto both groups of .NET language users.

Entirechapters are dedicated to explaining the composition of Simple Object AccessProtocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language, and Service Discovery(DISCO) files. (The chapter on Universal Description, Discovery, andIntegration is oddly positioned toward the back of the book.) There arechapters on using ASP.NET, ADO .NET, and Office XP with Web Services, as well.Now, however, Microsoft has released the SQL Server 2000 and Office XP WebServices toolkits, so the value in reading these chapters has been somewhatreduced.

Thebalance of the book touches on COM interoperability, using transaction andasynchronous operations within Web Services architectures, and manipulating SOAPheaders and extensions further for custom requirements. I was particularlydisappointed, however, to not find any discussion in the book on Microsoft.NET-authored Web Services' interoperability with other, non-Microsoft WebServices technologies. Those include Perl's SOAP::Lite and Python's SOAPlibraries, as well as one or two Java client scenarios. After all, one of theprimary reasons Web Services were standardized was to achieve vendor neutralityin the Internet Remote Procedure Call space. A case study of Web Servicesdiscussing real-world problem and solution scenarios (such as what to do whenSOAP interoperability between cross-platform systems doesn't work asadvertised) would have been a better topic for a chapter than the cursoryoverview of .NET My Services that caps the book.

Giventhese issues, the detail this book provides is not much greater than what youcan find in a more comprehensive title about ASP.NET in general. Readers whoare willing to spend a little extra money for lengthier alternatives willacquire a majority of the content this book offers.

- Mike Riley

Microsoft .NET XML Web Services by Robert Tabor, SAMS Publishing, http://www.samspublishing.com.

Rating:

ISBN:0-672-32088-6

CoverPrice: US$39.99

(464pages)