XML Code Gen & Service Description Langauge

Stefan Tilkov talks about Runtime Interface Dependency.

. . . while my application code may be tolerant to at least some changes, the generated infrastructure code isn’t

+1 for WS-DuckTyping.

I realize that my WADL Gateway Drug logic is therefore fairly twisted given my own experience with the over dependence/brittleness that results from code gen. My idealist side agrees that it isn't necessary. My "I wanna see this happen" side appeals to it because the current state of the WS-EnterpriseProgrammer thinks in a service description language way. I just want to throw them a bone. I'm not sure this is wise or what.

There are some good comments in Stefan's Does REST Need a Service Description Language? post.

My favorite:

peter: I’m very interested in how a “typical” REST development process looks like (if such a thing exists). Up till now I have to stick to WS-* at work. How would a cross project interaction work in the REST world? What does the service provider project team give to the service consumer project team? Just a set of URIs? How do they implement the REST service clients? Manually, using CommonsHTTPClient with an XML Mapping framework of choice? Do I stress the toolsupport too much?

stefan: "Do I stress the toolsupport too much?"

Yes, I think you do — after all, do you hand over a WSDL without any accompanying documentation when you use WS-*? Chances are you provide the other team with some documentation, either inline or separate, that they have to read before using your service. A great way to document your resources is to return HTML when someone does a GET …

CommonsHttpClient is a good choice. Whether or not you need an XML binding framework is orthogonal.

peter: Yes, you’re right. WSDL is not enough as documentation for the service consumers. Usually we provide the complete client api :) Which was not the intention from the beginning. But most colleagues ask for example code in their preferred language and not an interface description. Then we come to the question why we used WSDL in the first place? There is one thing were it really works. I use soapUI a lot for testing. Point it to your SOAP Service, append “?wsdl” and let it generate a sample request.

I think that Mark Baker sums it up concisely:

Cut the cord already! RPC is dead. You’re not in Kansas anymore.