"Carr, Wayne" <wayne(_dot_)carr(_at_)intel(_dot_)com> 06/08/01 02:46PM >>>
I think SOAP is much simpler than people may think. Here's a quick made up
example. I'll make this slightly more complicated to show multiple
features. The parts of the example starting this "t:", "m:" and "y:" are
the content of the message being sent and can be any arbitrary content
anyone defines using XML. The rest is the soap framework itself and that's
It is provably impossible to create a fast and correct implementation
of a protocol that embeds arbitrary content within XML. That is the
nature of a character-delimited protocol. XML is not 8bit clean, and
therefore is not suitable for encapsulating arbitrary content within
an application that operates at router speeds. That's also why most
SOAP implementations are vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks
simply by selective abuse of the XML data.
I have trouble believing that iCAP justifies the overhead of an HTTP
syntax, let alone XML on top of HTTP.
Cheers,
Roy T. Fielding, Chief Scientist, eBuilt, Inc.
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614-5840 fax:+1.949.609.0001
(fielding(_at_)ebuilt(_dot_)com) <http://www.eBuilt.com>