All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

SOAP on a progressively-lengthening rope

rjray on 2002-03-16T11:40:08

The latest version of Mozilla, version 0.9.9, is now out and available for download. I mention this only because of two particularly-cool new features in this build: MathML support, and built-in SOAP scripting.

Strictly speaking, this isn't Perl-related, as the SOAP scripting is done by providing new classes to the JavaScript engine within Moz. But there will be a Perl-relevant link soon enough-- I'm working on a JavaScript function to place on my PerlMonks.org Home Node, that will cause the page (when viewed with a compatible browser, of course) to use the SOAP interface here at use.perl.org to fetch my journal history, RSS-like, and put it on the page.

On a related note, as I was reading in the ORA SOAP book about different server-node environments, I was mildly amused to note that in order to develop and deploy .Net services, you would have to be running IIS webserver. I guess I'm not that surprised by this, I just suppose I assumed they would make the engine more stand-alone. But that might seem like a silent endorsement of running Apache on your NT machine instead of IIS. Heh.

--rjray

[The English language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
-- George Orwell

Scary

pudge on 2002-03-16T13:34:19

OK, that is really scary. If the browser is what is doing this, what's to prevent you from forcing someone to post or delete an entry on their own account, since their browser will contain their cookie?

Please tell me the auto-SOAP functions don't send browser cookies ...

Re:Scary

rjray on 2002-03-16T23:54:42

Hadn't even considered that possibility. But then, I'm your proto-typical white-hat: my first thought when handed a new technology to play with is what creative things I can do with it. I have the luxury of not having to worry about server-side issues like you do :-).

I've been reading the docs on their SOAP API, and I've just re-read them again. There is no mention to either degree about cookies with an HTTP-based request. I will write the parties responsible, and ask for some clarification. When (if?) I get it, I'll post another journal entry.

--rjray

Re:Scary

pudge on 2002-03-17T01:27:08

I deal with Slashdot users, my first thought when handed a new technology is to think how it might be abused.

OK, OK, I was doing that long before I ever worked on Slashdot. :-)

Re:Scary

jdavidb on 2002-03-19T20:20:57

I deal with Slashdot users, my first thought when handed a new technology is to think how it might be abused.

I can't figure out how to reply, but that's the funniest sentence I've heard all day.