My title question may be a little misleading, but that question is what got me to this point. I realize that SOAP is probably a common way to make a web service available. However, Microsoft seems to have dropped support for the SOAP toolkit, and I'm not sure how to use SOAP on a Win2003 Server with ASP.Net support enabled.
But I need to go another layer in depth. I have to question whether I'm really trying to implement a "web service". I simply want to be able to call a procedure in my web application (a DLL) on an IIS server written in VFP. My procedure does NOT need to be published for public consumption. So, I don't see any need for a .WSDL description of my procedures. In fact, it may be better not to make such a description publicly available.
I have also found that SOAP is getting in the way of allowing my procedure to work--because the infrastructure it uses is lost in scope when SOAP tries to invoke my routine from within SOAPSERVER30.DLL.
So, this whole experience causes me to question whether I need SOAP at all. I've been reading a little bit of an old article from Rick Strahl about using the HTTP protocol directly (via winInet). This seems like the direction I want to go, but now Vista is a reality and seems VERY different from XP. I'm not confident that new development using an old technology is going to be supported.
Is anyone else out there facing these types of issues? What technologies are you using? I've looked at .Net and I don't think I want to go there--for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that I feel abandoned by Microsoft in terminating development on VFP. I'm really interested in solving my remote procedure call problem, but I'd love to hear about what other directions VFP people are heading?
Thanks,
Ron
But I need to go another layer in depth. I have to question whether I'm really trying to implement a "web service". I simply want to be able to call a procedure in my web application (a DLL) on an IIS server written in VFP. My procedure does NOT need to be published for public consumption. So, I don't see any need for a .WSDL description of my procedures. In fact, it may be better not to make such a description publicly available.
I have also found that SOAP is getting in the way of allowing my procedure to work--because the infrastructure it uses is lost in scope when SOAP tries to invoke my routine from within SOAPSERVER30.DLL.
So, this whole experience causes me to question whether I need SOAP at all. I've been reading a little bit of an old article from Rick Strahl about using the HTTP protocol directly (via winInet). This seems like the direction I want to go, but now Vista is a reality and seems VERY different from XP. I'm not confident that new development using an old technology is going to be supported.
Is anyone else out there facing these types of issues? What technologies are you using? I've looked at .Net and I don't think I want to go there--for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that I feel abandoned by Microsoft in terminating development on VFP. I'm really interested in solving my remote procedure call problem, but I'd love to hear about what other directions VFP people are heading?
Thanks,
Ron
