[cl-soap-devel] API and Usability in CL-SOAP

[Sven Van Caekenberghe]

On 29 Sep 2005, at 06:01, Alain.Picard at memetrics.com wrote:

>
> Dear Sven,
>
> I've been playing with CL-SOAP, and thinking about what
> I'm going to have to layer on top of it to integrate it
> in my app.  I'm not sure I'm completely happy with what
> cl-soap currently provides, so let me know if you think
> my expectations are unrealistic.  :-)

> [...]

> I guess that that's the sort of deep integration I was _really_  
> hoping for.
>
> Lemme know your thougts.

Alain,

As described in our earlier (private) email conversations, I think that
(1) the current system is quite usable, especially now that it is  
finished somewhat more;
      it is now symmetrical in input vs output
(2) as described on http://common-lisp.net/project/cl-soap/google- 
adwords-api.html
      the usage scenario is now rather clean: do a describe-wsdl-soap  
on your service's wsdl,
      find the method that you want to call, study the input and  
output templates and
      write a rather straightforward and simple lisp function; the cl- 
soap framework will to all
      the required behind-the-scenes work automagically
(3) any stronger or higher level integration could be added on top of  
the current system,
      with a couple of macros
(4) I like the current representation and think that with a variant  
of getf and (setf getf) that uses string
       comparison you can get very far, without the need of  
converting to and from real clos objects
(5) you might want to have a look at how Franz did their SOAP addon;  
I did and found it
       to be more complicated than want we currently have (but  
potentially wider in scope)
(6) note that what you're suggesting is more than generating  
functions for each operation,
      each type needs to be represented as well, as are more  
complicated argument lists

> So
>  1) am I dreaming?

No, not really, but maybe you don't really need the stuff you are  
asking for.
Give this getf and (setf getf) scenario a change.

>  2) do you agree this would be good?

Although I wouldn't consider it necessary, it would be a useful  
addition,
and might appeal more to some people than the current scheme

>  3) do you consider this out of scope?

Not out of scope of the whole cl-soap project over a longer period;
somewhat out of scope of 'phase1' maybe

>  4) do you think we'd want to do this?

Eventually, yes - right now, no

But I am open for more discussions!

Sven

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