Chapter 30. Web Services
IN THIS CHAPTER
Looking back over the past few years, it's hard to imagine networked computers without the web. The web allows for networked communication with hundreds of services provided by hundreds of companies and organizations. From a user standpoint, if you can type, you can access these services. From an application service provider (ASP) standpoint, if you can set up a website, communication is opened up to other services. The problem doesn't lie in the access of those services but in the communication between the users and the services. The web service movement aims to solve this problem by facilitating the communication between users and services and even services between services.
By "services," I don't mean the typical online shopping or auction service, such as Amazon or eBay. Services can range from something as simple as a service that checks the weather or validates a credit card to something as complex as an airline flight reservation service that automatically deducts money from a centralized account that you specify, updates a global calendar that you maintain, and even reserves a hotel and rental car based on the destination that you desire. Seem far off? Think again.
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