Even though web services are a new technology, you can learn a lot from recent history. Two of the major shifts in software development over the last couple of decades have been the development ofobject-oriented programming and component-based technology.
Object-oriented programming joined the mainstream in the early 1980s. Many saw objectoriented programming as the solution to the software crisis that resulted from the increasing complexity and size of software applications. Most projects were late and over budget, and the end result was often unreliable. The promise of object-oriented code was that by structuring code into objects, developers could create components that were more reusable, extensible, and maintainable. The 1990s saw the birth of component technology, which made it possible to build applications by assembling components. Component technology is really an extension of object-oriented principles outside the boundaries of any one particular language so that it becomes a core piece of infrastructure that everyone can use. While object-oriented languages allowed developers to reuseobjects in their applications, component-based technologies allowed developers to easily share compiled objects between applications. Two dominant component-based technologies emerged COM (the Component Object Model) and CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture).
Since that time, other component technologies have appeared (such as JavaBeans and .NET), but these are designed as proprietary solutions for specific programming frameworks. Soon after COM and CORBA were created, these standards were applied to distributed components so that an application could interact between objects hosted on different computers in a network. Although both COM and CORBA have a great deal of technical sophistication, they are often difficult to set up and support in network environments, and they can’t work together. These headaches became dramatically worse when the Internet appeared and developers began to apply these technologies to create distributed applications that spanned slower, less reliable, WANs (wide area networks). Because of their inherent complexity and proprietary nature, neither COM nor CORBA became truly successful in this environment. Web services are a new technology that aims to answer these problems by extending component object technology to the Web. Essentially, a web service is a unit of application logic (a component) that can be remotely invoked over the Internet. Many of the promises of web services are the same as those of component technology—the aim is to make it easier to assemble applications from prebuilt application logic, share functionality between organizations and partners, and create more modular applications. Unlike earlier component technologies, web services are designed exclusively for this purpose. This means that as a .NET developer, you will still use the .NET component model to share compiled assemblies between .NET applications. However, if you want to share functionality between applications running on different platforms or hosted by different companies, web services fit perfectly. Web services also place a much greater emphasis on interoperability. All software development platforms that allow programmers to create web services use the same bedrock of open XML-based standards. This ensures that you can create a web service using .NET and call it from a Java client or, alternatively, create a Java web service and call it from a .NET application.
Object-oriented programming joined the mainstream in the early 1980s. Many saw objectoriented programming as the solution to the software crisis that resulted from the increasing complexity and size of software applications. Most projects were late and over budget, and the end result was often unreliable. The promise of object-oriented code was that by structuring code into objects, developers could create components that were more reusable, extensible, and maintainable. The 1990s saw the birth of component technology, which made it possible to build applications by assembling components. Component technology is really an extension of object-oriented principles outside the boundaries of any one particular language so that it becomes a core piece of infrastructure that everyone can use. While object-oriented languages allowed developers to reuseobjects in their applications, component-based technologies allowed developers to easily share compiled objects between applications. Two dominant component-based technologies emerged COM (the Component Object Model) and CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture).
Since that time, other component technologies have appeared (such as JavaBeans and .NET), but these are designed as proprietary solutions for specific programming frameworks. Soon after COM and CORBA were created, these standards were applied to distributed components so that an application could interact between objects hosted on different computers in a network. Although both COM and CORBA have a great deal of technical sophistication, they are often difficult to set up and support in network environments, and they can’t work together. These headaches became dramatically worse when the Internet appeared and developers began to apply these technologies to create distributed applications that spanned slower, less reliable, WANs (wide area networks). Because of their inherent complexity and proprietary nature, neither COM nor CORBA became truly successful in this environment. Web services are a new technology that aims to answer these problems by extending component object technology to the Web. Essentially, a web service is a unit of application logic (a component) that can be remotely invoked over the Internet. Many of the promises of web services are the same as those of component technology—the aim is to make it easier to assemble applications from prebuilt application logic, share functionality between organizations and partners, and create more modular applications. Unlike earlier component technologies, web services are designed exclusively for this purpose. This means that as a .NET developer, you will still use the .NET component model to share compiled assemblies between .NET applications. However, if you want to share functionality between applications running on different platforms or hosted by different companies, web services fit perfectly. Web services also place a much greater emphasis on interoperability. All software development platforms that allow programmers to create web services use the same bedrock of open XML-based standards. This ensures that you can create a web service using .NET and call it from a Java client or, alternatively, create a Java web service and call it from a .NET application.
No comments:
Post a Comment