[Python-Dev] Leading with XML-RPC

[Eric Kidd]

On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 12:52:27PM -0500, Skip Montanaro wrote:
> 
>     Eric> Therefore the concrete proposal: we should make XML-RPC support in
>     Eric> the Python standard library a goal for 2.2.  I'd like to see votes
>     Eric> and/or a BDFL pronouncement on this goal.
> 
> +1 from me.  I use a slightly doctored version of /F's 0.9.8 version of
> xmlrpclib (current version is, I think, 0.9.9).  Perhaps inclusion in the
> Python core would be a good reason to bump the version number to 1.0.  

I recommend using /F's library, too--it's just a tiny snippet of native
Python code.

My library, although nice, is intended for C programmers, and needlessly
duplicates a lot of Python functionality.  It has its own data model (based
on Python's), UTF-8 processing (based on Python's), structure builder
(based on Python's), and so on.  You get the picture.

> The only potential problem I see is that nagging "gotta be ASCII for
> interoperability" bug up Dave W's butt.  It flies in the face of attempts to
> make Python more Unicode-friendly.

Fredrik's library supports Unicode.  My library supports Unicode.  The Java
libraries all support Unicode.  And furthermore, we all appear to have
interop.

On a related note: XML-RPC is easy to implement, but a bit of niche.  SOAP,
on the other, is hard to implement but widely used.  But there's a third
option--"SOAP BDG" ("Busy Developer's Guide").

Dave Winer and his employees prepared a short summary of the SOAP
specification--leaving out many of the vaguer features--and convinced many
people to support this feature set.  So if you read the SOAP BDG paper and
implement it, you can interoperate with many, many commercial SOAP stacks.

So either XML-RPC or SOAP BDG would be good strategic options.

Cheers,
Eric