Day: October 20, 2002

WebServices.Org points to WSDL Explorer by IBM AlphaWorks.  The WSDL explorer is available online here.  Here’s a blurb from the pointer:

Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Explorer is a Web application that displays WSDL files, generates views of operations, allows invocation of operations, and allows viewing of sample message flow. It enables users to compare and contrast Web services without going through the time and trouble of importing them into a heavy development tool. WSDL Explorer provides the ability to browse WSDL files, and it offers immediate access to Web service operations.

Doug Kaye:

Iterative Improvement. In a web-services world it’s often less expensive to modify a service than it is to redesign and reprint a paper form. Does this mean we can relax the usual fanatacism for the top-down design of our business processes? Can we actually plan for a more iterative design approach? In terms of version control, adding an output XML element or attribute is almost always backwards compatible, something that’s been elusive with older technologies. Just something I’ve been thinking about.

Think about that for a minute.

Keith Davens:

Joel Spolsky:

Most of the RSS subscribers are whacking me every hour, which is actually costing me cash money in excess bandwidth charges. How can I set it up so they only visit once a day? Is this an RSS option? I rarely post more than once or twice a day. Maybe I should change the RSS feed to just include headlines with links.

This is why I click “check all feeds” in my own aggregator when I feel like catching up. It runs for about a minute checking my 80+ feeds, and then displays all changes to me. I think it’s rude to be hitting someone’s site every hour automatically for no reason.

I’ve modified the way I do things so that I try to take a few minutes break from whatever I’m doing, if possible, about once an hour to catch up on my RSS feed.  I guess I’m a freak.  I use Radio’s RSS aggregator, so I’m stuck with aggregating once an hour since I’m on the road a lot.

I’m a freak, though I understand about bandwidth issues.

RSS-RPC?  RSS Services?

The thing that bothers me is that I have to download everyone’s entire RSS file in order to parse it and figure out what’s new based on timestamps and stuff.  Wouldn’t an interactive RSS make a lot of sense?  Some way to ping someone’s weblog via XML-RPC or SOAP, pass in a date/time, and get back an array of entries in well-formed RSS of only the new entries.