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Web Services?  What are those?

Glad you asked.  XML web services are a relatively new development, designed to become the fundamental building block in distributed computing on the Internet.  In other words, web services allow business and personal users to interface online without the need for a third-party program.

Imagine having an application running on your computer.  You enter information into that application, while a business partner in another part of the country does the same in an application they’re working with.  Instead of you having to use an Instant Messenger or some other third-party program so that you can communicate with your partner (even simple e-mail is considered a third party in this example), the applications that the two of you are using share the information directly, providing both of you with the results.  Now imagine that the applications that the two of you are using are simply built into a web page.  That’s the integration of web services with XML.

When it comes down to it, all that web services are is a new way for users to interface with applications.  The web services application uses an XML messaging system to make itself available over the Internet, and because the core of the communications is XML, it doesn’t even have to communicate with the systems that it would normally be compatible with.  Windows can communicate with Unix, and Java can send messages to Perl.  Web services use XML as a sort of “universal translator.”

Ok, so what are some common web services?

Web services are still a relatively new technology, with new web services being developed by programmers every day.  Some of the web services that have already been created, though, are nothing short of amazing.  Examples of these web services are:

• News syndication services that present the most recent headlines to users
• Stock market analysis, with up-to-date tickers of the ups and downs of the market
• Weather reports giving current information for the users area
• Shipping systems, giving up-to-date tracking information
• Traffic reports for different localities
• Interactive sites offering product troubleshooting
• Up-to-date currency exchanges
• Applications that need to be used by large numbers of users, some of whom are behind firewalls

Additionally, more web services are being developed every day.  It’s still a growing technology, so advances that are made which might seem minor at first stand a chance of becoming ground-breaking work.