What Are Web Services?

Web Services can be described as any functionality that is accessible over the Internet, generally (but not necessarily) using one or more eXtensible Markup Language (XML) messages in the communications protocol. Web Services use the concept of an operation to represent the association of a request message to zero or more response messages. When these operations are combined to satisfy some particular purpose, they form an interface.

The Poor Man's Web Service

The Internet is already flooded with conventional types of Web Services, better known as Web pages. Users are expected to interact with the functionality behind the Web page through typical user-interface widgets such as forms, buttons, and so on.

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