For Immediate Release
January 24, 2002
For more information, a review copy, cover art or an interview with
the authors, contact:
Kathryn Barrett (707) 827-7094 or kathrynb@oreilly.com 


"PROGRAMMING WEB SERVICES WITH SOAP"--A DETAILED GUIDE TO 
USING SOAP AND OTHER WEB SERVICES STANDARDS


Sebastopol, CA--Web services are nothing new. As the authors of
"Programming Web Services with SOAP" (Snell, Tidwell & Kulchenko,
O'Reilly US $34.95) explain, web services represent the evolution of
principles that have guided the Internet for years. Technically
speaking, a web service is a network accessible interface to
application functionality, built using standard Internet technologies.
In other words, if an application can be accessed over a network using
a combination of protocols like HTTP, XML, SMTP, or Jabber, then it's a
web service. It's that simple.

In "Programming Web Services with SOAP", coauthors James Snell, Doug
Tidwell, and Pavel Kulchenko explain how SOAP (Simple Object Access
Protocol), the most popular web service protocol, operates to help
programs communicate with each other through the Web, using XML,
regardless of the operating system. They begin with an introduction to
SOAP, detailing its history and structure, followed by an introduction
to the three major types of SOAP applications: SOAP-RPC,
SOAP-Messaging, and SOAP-Intermediaries.

"Web services are not just a passing fad," says coauthor Snell. "While
there is a lot of hype out there, there is also a fundamental change
going on in the way the Internet works, and the various web services
technologies are part of this change. It will be important for people
to understand these technologies and to know how they work.

"Web services technologies represent a fundamental shift in the way web
applications will be written for e-businesses," Snell continues. "Sure,
there will still be web pages and HTML, and JavaScript development, but
many e-business applications will increasingly rely on programmatic
interfaces that tie Internet-based applications together on a more
functional level. This is what web services do for us."

"Programming Web Services with SOAP" decodes the standards, explaining
the concepts and implementation in a clear, concise style. The authors
also discuss the major toolkits for building and deploying web
services. Examples in Java, Perl, C#, and Visual Basic illustrate the
principles. Covered topics include:

-The web services architecture
-SOAP envelopes, headers, and encodings
-WSDL and UDDI
-Writing web services with Apache SOAP and Java
-Writing web services with Perl's SOAP::Lite
-Peer-to-Peer (P2P) web services
-Enterprise issues such as authentication, security, and identity. 

While this book is primarily a technical resource for software
developers, its overview of the relevant technologies, development
models, standardization efforts, and architectural fundamentals can be
easily grasped by a nontechnical audience wishing to gain a better
understanding of this emerging set of new technologies. "Programming
Web Services with SOAP" provides a solid core of information that will
help the reader develop individual web services or discover new ways to
integrate core business processes across an enterprise.

Additional Resources:  "Programming Web Services with SOAP" is also
available on Safari Books Online,
see: http://safari.oreilly.com/ 

An article by coauthor Pavel Kulchenko,
"Web Services Acronyms, Demystified" may be found at:
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/01/09/soap.html

Chapter 3, "Writing SOAP Web Services" is available free online at:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/progwebsoap/chapter/ch03.html 

For more information about the book, including Table of Contents,
index, author bios, and samples, see:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/progwebsoap/

For a cover graphic in jpeg format, go to:
ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/graphics/book_covers/hi-res/0596000952.jpg 

Programming Web Services with SOAP
By James Snell, Doug Tidwell, and Pavel Kulchenko
January 2002
ISBN 0-596-00095-2, 244 pages, $34.95 (US), $52.95 (CAN)
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
http://www.oreilly.com

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