I read the XML-RPC book. Ok, I only read chapters 1, 2, 4 and 8. I don't do Java, PHP, ASP or COM. I'll read those if I have to.
What I read, I liked. XML-RPC is fairly straightforward and simple stuff when you get right down to it. The information and examples were both friendly and useful.
I think that this book could be heavily expanded to include chapters on topics that were mentioned in Chapter 8. Specifically, logging, authentication and especially payloads (ssl, etc). A chapter that deals specifically with Apache/mod_perl could also be added, as it is brought up a couple of times (p.65,88).
Specifically, I'd like to see a setup (sample client and server) for XML-RPC using https.
Medium nit - The current release of Frontier::RPC that's out on CPAN is 0.06. I found 0.07b3 off of Ken MacLeod's home page. So, 0.07 is BETA. Might want to mention that.
Very, very minor nit - Page 71, first large paragraph - add the word "respectively" to the end of the 3rd sentence (after 'object').
Re:Thanks for the review
djberg96 on 2002-03-26T02:59:59
They're doing a second edition to Unix Power Tools? That's cool. That's one of my favorite ORA books, even if I don't use it so much any more.On a slightly different tangent, one thing I'm beginning to notice about a lot of bundles is that they tend to roll their own servers that provide only very basic server functionality, and Frontier::Daemon falls into the same category (which I realize is a subclass of HTTP::Daemon).
I'd really like to see some sort of ultra-flexible & robust super class that could be used by future authors instead of having to write some home-grown daemon. I think Net::Server has the most potential in that area, even though I've personally had problems with it. It's still a great idea, I think, as it allows you to select options like setsid (a must for any server IMHO), max forks, max threads, etc.
Any opinions? Anyone?
Re:Thanks for the review
djberg96 on 2002-03-26T03:01:21
Oops, I meant 3rd edition.Re:Thanks for the review
jjohn on 2002-03-26T13:15:53
/me opens can of worms
There are good reasons to use a standalone HTTP server. Look at Samba's SWAT utility, for instance. However, the Apache project is such a great platform for serving dynamic content, it seems foolish to try to to reimpliment it in Perl. So, my preference is to show people how to exploit Apache with XML-RPC (or SOAP) and leave the standalone HTTP servers for "vertical" applications.
Once again, I'm beginning to thing about what I'd show in the 2nd ed. of XML-RPC and I now I'd talk about HTTPS, authentication/authorization and mod_perl more. Apache is a natural fit for these, but, of course, these topics can be covered using some form of HTTP::Daemon or Net::Server.
A quick note about UPT3, there will not be a CD-ROM with this book. I think the idea is that the Internet is so pervasive that a CD-ROM is unnecessary. So all the CD-ROM programs whose source code wouldn't fit cleanly into the text has been excised. The Perl chapter now has actual Perl content (go figure) and generally, areas that had hand waving have more specifics. It took five authors to finish this 3rd edition. Hopefully, the suck knob was turned down, not up, on the book. We are trying to get the book out by OSCon2002, but I don't know if that will happen.
