Programming Web Services with XML-RPC (O'Reilly Internet Series) (Paperback)

by Simon St. Laurent (Author), Edd Dumbill (Author), Joe Johnston (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
'This is a good book and, if this is an area of programming that interests you, simply buy a copy and save yourself hours of trial and error.' - Mike James, Computer Shopper, October 2001

Product Description
Programming Web Services with XML-RPC introduces the simple but powerful capabilities of XML-RPC, a system for remote procedure calls built on XML and the HTTP protocol. XML-RPC lets developers connect programs running on different computers with a minimum of fuss, by wrapping procedure calls in XML and establishing simple pathways for calling functions. With XML-RPC, Java programs can talk to Perl scripts, which can talk to Python programs, ASP applications, and so on. Developers can provide access to functionality without having to worry about the system on the other end, so it's easy to create web services. This book supplies the details of both the XML-RPC specification and various XML-RPC implementations, so you can get started developing distributed applications in Java, Perl, Python, ASP, or PHP.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 1st edition (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596001193
• ISBN-13: 978-0596001193
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #635,233 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good coverage of a new topic, July 12, 2001

By	Michael R Bernstein (Las Vegas, NV United States) - See all my reviews

As with most O'Reilly books, this one is a comprehensive treatment of an emerging technology, and is probably destined to become a standard reference on the subject as it moves into mainstream development. Unfortunately, it is not without its flaws.

The book does an excellent job of covering What XML-RPC is, what it does, and how it can be used from a variety of programming environmments to build web-services, including touching on my web-development environment of choice, Zope.

Notable in it's absence however (and the reason I gave this book four stars instead of five), is any mention in the book's main text of the environment that spawned XML-RPC, UserLand Frontier. Although Dave Winer (creator of Frontier) wrote the foreword to the book, I think that some coverage should have been given to using Frontier with XML-RPC.

I could wish that the subject of designing web services had taken center-stage, rather than some specific implementations, but the design of web-services is covered more than adequately in chapter eight.

Make no mistake, this is an excellent book, especially if you build web applications in any of the five programming environments covered (Perl, Python, ASP, PHP, Java), and I can reccomend it wholeheartedly to anyone who is creating or designing web-services.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All About XML-RPC in Five Languages, January 8, 2002

By	Eric R. Dunstan (California, the Golden State, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book explains fully how to use XML-RPC in five languages: Java, PHP, Perl, Python, and ASP. Becuase XML-RPC is so simple to use (I got it working for both Java and PHP), it does not take much explanation to set up this technology and actually use it. This book is a good up-to-date reference for this technology, which will has been established and is being implemented in more and more languages as time progresses, making this technology an alternative to CORBA.
This is a small book, because the subject is very easy and fast to learn. By using the Universal Language XML, This technology enables programs in one language to call procedures in programs in another language across the internet, regardless of firewalls, because it runs on HTTP.
Some of the possibilities of using XML-RPC are in SOAP applications, distributed applications, even internet games.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good intro for XML/RPC, October 21, 2002

By	A. J. Gauld (Scotland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Good coverage but a bit repetitive since it explains
the same thing for each of several languages. Only
read the chapters you need... Sadly XML/RPC seems
to be losing ground to .NET/SOAP which is a shame
coz RPC is much simpler and less bandwidth intensive.