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Stop SOAP

stopsoap.com

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Re: Stop SOAP

#71
I'm wondering how it's technically possible for a submission with over 500 up-votes to be flagged to the point of being pushed off the front page; interestingly, it was not a gradual departure, as you'd expect, but rather it seemed to move instantly, from the top spot, to number 33 or 34, on the second page.

I think it's terribly important that it be possible for the community to reflect, critically: SOPA is a serious issue, one we should all be concerned about, and more importantly taking action against. However, there is a point where it becomes an echo chamber, where we are preaching to the choir. Having nearly every submission be yet another "X is blacked out" does not necessarily correlate to communicating to our lawmakers that we do not want this legislation to pass.

Clearly this subtle, yet provocative submission's intent to communicate such a critique was understood by a number of people. I'm still unsure how it ended up bumped so quickly, but whatever the case, I hope the point wasn't entirely lost on those of you who didn't appreciate it.

Re: Stop SOAP

#72
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SOAP is a specification for exposing remote procedure calls via a web service. The client executes a SOAP request by making an HTTP Post request against a URL with an XML request body that specifies what remote procedure to call and what parameters to pass into it. The service, in turn, sends an HTTP response with an XML body that contains the return value from the procedure call. SOAP services also usually include a…

Yes that comment really helps but if i am getting it right, it is something like JSON, right? like JSON is used in public API's and all sorts of server-client communication. Any particular reason to take SOAP against something like JSON?

Not exactly.

SOAP is a protocol specification for executing remote procedure calls over a network. SOAP uses XML for its message formatting and data serialization, and (usually) HTTP for its network protocol.

JSON, on the other hand, is a data serialization format rather than a remote procedure call format. It is sometimes used in web services - especially services based on Representational state transfer (REST) - to pass structured data between the client and server, but it is not a remote procedure call protocol in itself.

REST, in turn, is a method for designing a web service so that its functionality is accessed the same way that HTTP works. In REST, the service is organized into resources and methods, with resources corresponding to URLs and methods corresponding to the HTTP request methods: chiefly GET, POST, PUT and DELETE.

If you want to access a resource, you issue an HTTP GET request on the URL corresponding to that resource. If you want to create a resource, you issue an HTTP POST request on the URL corresponding to that resource with the data you want to post in the request body. If you want to update an existing resource, you issue an HTTP PUT request on the corresponding URL with the updated data. If you want to delete a resource, you issue an HTTP DELETE request on the corresponding URL.

Recently, many REST web services are designed to accept request data in JSON format and to send responses in JSON as well. Since web services are mainly consumed by client programs (rather than by humans browsing), JSON allows for a generic data structure that the client can consume and parse more easily than HTML, which is designed more specifically to structure documents.

Re: Stop SOAP

#73
post #71

I'm wondering how it's technically possible for a submission with over 500 up-votes to be flagged to the point of being pushed off the front page; interestingly, it was not a gradual departure, as you'd expect, but rather it seemed to move instantly, from the top spot, to number 33 or 34, on the second page. I think it's terribly important that it be possible for the community to reflect, critically: SOPA is a seriou…

I suspect the absolutely dismal state of the comments helped to get it flagged into oblivion.

Re: Stop SOAP

#74

I'll admit to being completely ignorant about the benefits of using SOAP to communicate between servers. However I can say that for server->client communication it is the worse data representation I've ever had to work with and I genuinely hope we see the end of it. JSON maybe not be perfect, but it's so much better at delivering a structured data model then xml is.

There's also XMLRPC which is as simple as JSON and still XML

Re: Stop SOAP

#75
post #61

Hi - I'm Josh - the guy behind Stop SOAP. There is no political intent behind this site. It is meant to be a joke. A joke with a grain of truth. Backstory: I was waiting for a conference call, saw that stopsoap wasn't registered and put this together in 15min. Deeper backstory: I'm the co-founder & CEO of Simple.com. We deal with many SOAP APIs. The upside is that SOAP provides very clear specifications as to how the…

Well, you may soon be the accidental hero who saved the world from slippery things.

Re: Stop SOAP

#76

More tragic than HN becoming an advocacy site (the beginning of Slashdot's demise) is how many comments here don't get the joke.

Slashdot was always an advocacy site. Rob Malda posted about a similar action he took in 1996, before /. got its name. https://plus.google.com/u/0/105030465637303791249/posts/MTYL...
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