Multiple XML-RPC calls over the same connection?

[Jeremy Bowers]

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 20:49:50 +0200, Diez B. Roggisch wrote:
> While I have to admit that it is a nice trick, its something I expect beeing
> part of a IPC-standard - otherwise, it renders the standard short of beeing
> useless.

XML-RPC was designed from the get go to be very, very simple, as in
"person skilled in a language ought to be able to get one going in a
matter of hours". It breaks out of that domain, but it is nice to have a
cross-platform RPC mechanism that meets that description. If I want to get
a weather report for zip-code XXXXX, I shouldn't need CORBA.

It isn't useless, but it definitely has established its niche at the lower
end of the scale.

I would point out the XML-RPC is built on HTTP and XML and theoretically
inherits the benefits and disadvantages of both. Specifically, if your
server and client supported it, you should be able to use Cookie: headers
just as you would in HTTP. That would sort of be a grey area in the
standard.

(It's probably about time for XML-RPC 1.1 that seperates the data encoding
from the transport; right now according to the standard they are
intertwined and "XML-RPC over SMTP" or "over Jabber" are meaningless
phrases; those things are just "XML-RPC-like". Then maybe we could allow
various transports to be used more fully, according to the defined
transport; Jabber is another example where the transport has useful
capabilities but they are just thrown away for RPC purposes.)