Sams Teach Yourself TCP/IP in 24 Hours, Fourth Edition

Understanding Web Services

Now that almost every computer has a web browser, and web servers are widely understood, visionaries and software developers have been hard at work devising new ways to use the tools of the Web. In the old days, a programmer who wanted to write a network application had to create a custom server program, a custom client program, and a custom syntax or format for the two applications to exchange information. The effort of writing all this software was a huge expense of time and brain space, but with the rising importance of computer networking, the goals of data integration and centralized management was driving the demand client server applications. Network program interfaces existed of course—otherwise many of the ...