discussing web services

It’s perhaps time for us to lay down what ‘web services’ are for developers, as in itself, the web provides a multitude of services. One of our very own web developers, Will has taken on this task in an article originally posted at the red ant community area of our website.

It’s a pretty great article to describe what a developer/programmer/engineer is talking about when they discuss web services, and we’d thoroughly recommend that to anyone. As a taster, these are few comments that Will has made;

web services are a means for one application to talk to another, or a sort of Internet form of communication that allows different platforms – written in whatever language – the ability to converse and share information.

In order for applications on the Internet to freely exchange information we need an open protocol that can be interpreted and implemented easily by many different systems. HTTP, the underlying protocol of the humble web browser fits these criteria. Web services, SOAP and REST it goes without saying fall into the realm of geekery that are unlikely ever to require the average website owners attention.

If you want to see and read more, Wills full article that fully describes what web services are is found in the community/blog area of the red ant site. You cannot post comments there, however, we’ll happily enter into discussion here!