Re: It's time for practical XML!

Simeon Simeonov (simeons@allaire.com)
Sun, 4 Oct 1998 18:24:28 -0400


Hi, Dave!

Here are some comments:

>We looked at WDDX and saw that it was a subset of XML-RPC.
>
>http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/xml/code/rpc.html

Not really. WDDX is explicitly about not being related to RPC. It deals
specifically and only with data. There is no notion of request-response,
objects, methods, and interfaces.

As far as data is concerned, apart the fact that we expose a recordset
datatype, our datatypes are indeed similar.

>WDDX makes no statement about transport. We're going to look at supporting
>it, but we're already deploying apps that do this stuff, along with
>WebMethods and others, have been since March. Allaire still has to settle
>on a transport (we suggest HTTP).

This is done on purpose, since WDDX is only about describing data. Yes, HTTP
makes the most sense for moving data around the 'net. I recently saw an
example of a WDDX-enabled app that pulled data from an ASP and a ColdFusion
server to later display the data in MS Word. HTTP and DCOM were involved. I
also know of applications that use WDDX as a structured representation for
data they persist to databases.

>Also, XML-RPC made Infoworld back in July, along with an interesting note
>that Microsoft is somehow involved:
>
>http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?980710.whsoap.htm

Yes, this was an interesting article!

>I would argue that XML is about working together. We have tremendous
>respect for Allaire. It would be wonderful if we could build applications
>that combine the capabilities of Cold Fusion and Frontier. We're inches
>away from this, and a little bit of building on each others' strengths is
>all it takes.

Absolutely. I'll contact you on a private channel.

Regards,

Sim