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10/05/2001 Archived Entry: "XML.com: Web Services: It's So Crazy, It Just Might Not Work [Oct. 03, 2001]"

XML.com: Web Services: It's So Crazy, It Just Might Not Work [Oct. 03, 2001]

Web Services: It's So Crazy, It Just Might Not Work
by Clay Shirky
October 03, 2001

That high-pitched sound you hear is the Web Services hype machine revving up, as words like "revolution' and "paradigm" begin making their regularly scheduled appearance in the press and white papers, where we are promised a Shiny New World of on-the-fly software creation.

The hype is happening just as practical applications for XML-structured data beginning to appear. Web Services can reduce the effort and quicken the process of creating standards between developers or businesses which want to work together, an important if somewhat modest improvement in the Internet's plumbing.

Unfortunately, though, Web Services are being sold not only as improved plumbing but also as a way to create fantastic new software, seamlessly and automatically connecting any two business processes or applications anywhere on the network as if by magic.