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comp.lang.ruby

webservices status in rails

snacktime

11/20/2006 8:41:00 PM

I heard rumors that webservices as they are now in rails was going to
change or even be taken out altogether. Anyone know enough about it's
future to say whether it's a smart idea to start basing a webservice
on rails at this point?

Chris
4 Answers

Chuck Remes

11/20/2006 8:53:00 PM

0


On Monday, November 20, 2006, at 02:41PM, "snacktime" <snacktime@gmail.com> wrote:
>I heard rumors that webservices as they are now in rails was going to
>change or even be taken out altogether. Anyone know enough about it's
>future to say whether it's a smart idea to start basing a webservice
>on rails at this point?

The new REST support in the upcoming Rails 1.2 promises to make Rails one of the premiere platforms for building web services. Rails handles the server side beautifully. It assumes the data marshalling will be done with xml, but there's no reason it couldn't be extended to include SOAP envelopes.

For the client side of the equation (and server-side too, to a certain extent) the new ActiveResource library looks incredible. I just started scratching at it this weekend and already I'm impressed. It does for web services what ActiveRecord does for database access; that is, it makes them brain-dead simple.

So, avoid the ActionWebservice library unless you need to build something SOAPy "right now." Otherwise, look at Rails 1.2 and ActiveResource.

cr

Tom Copeland

11/20/2006 9:27:00 PM

0

On Tue, 2006-11-21 at 05:40 +0900, snacktime wrote:
> I heard rumors that webservices as they are now in rails was going to
> change or even be taken out altogether. Anyone know enough about it's
> future to say whether it's a smart idea to start basing a webservice
> on rails at this point?

FWIW, I've got a server API (getindi.com) that's completely based on
XML-RPC via actionwebservice. So actionwebservice will definitely
continue in some sense or another, whether it's part of Rails core or
not...

Yours,

tom

snacktime

11/21/2006 12:14:00 AM

0

On 11/20/06, Tom Copeland <tom@infoether.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-11-21 at 05:40 +0900, snacktime wrote:
> > I heard rumors that webservices as they are now in rails was going to
> > change or even be taken out altogether. Anyone know enough about it's
> > future to say whether it's a smart idea to start basing a webservice
> > on rails at this point?
>
> FWIW, I've got a server API (getindi.com) that's completely based on
> XML-RPC via actionwebservice. So actionwebservice will definitely
> continue in some sense or another, whether it's part of Rails core or
> not...
>
> Yours,

Thanks Tom! Good to know.

snacktime

11/22/2006 6:21:00 PM

0

On 11/20/06, cremes.devlist@mac.com <cremes.devlist@mac.com> wrote:
>
> On Monday, November 20, 2006, at 02:41PM, "snacktime" <snacktime@gmail.com> wrote:
> >I heard rumors that webservices as they are now in rails was going to
> >change or even be taken out altogether. Anyone know enough about it's
> >future to say whether it's a smart idea to start basing a webservice
> >on rails at this point?
>
> The new REST support in the upcoming Rails 1.2 promises to make Rails one of the premiere platforms for building web services. Rails handles the server side beautifully. It assumes the data marshalling will be done with xml, but there's no reason it couldn't be extended to include SOAP envelopes.
>
> For the client side of the equation (and server-side too, to a certain extent) the new ActiveResource library looks incredible. I just started scratching at it this weekend and already I'm impressed. It does for web services what ActiveRecord does for database access; that is, it makes them brain-dead simple.
>
> So, avoid the ActionWebservice library unless you need to build something SOAPy "right now." Otherwise, look at Rails 1.2 and ActiveResource.

The problem with REST is that it's not widely known, and most
developers we work with are much more familiar with SOAP. Our job is
to provide an api that the majority of our clients will be able to
implement without the extra hassle of learning something like REST. A
lot of our clients use .NET also, and the amount of extra work
required to use a webservice that isn't SOAP based can be substantial.

Chris