Real World XML Web Services: For VB and VB .Net Developers [With Cdrm]

The term 'web services' has been bandied around so long without anything the general public has seen to show for it, they probably shouldn't be blamed for wondering if it's anything more than vapourware. As developers of course, just the increase in system interoperability is enough to warrant continuing research time into the topic, and with Microsoft, IBM, Sun and a host of others backing web services, it's not going to go away.As a DevelopMentor branded book, Yasser's tome seemed as good a place as any to start learning about web services and I'm happy to say that it doesn't disappoint. Even though I'm a C# fan and his examples are exclusively in VB .NET or VB6, the text is easy to follow and packed with useful information and tips obviously gained from lengthy immersion in the subject.Chapter 1 is a quick introduction to the web service base platform, the standards it comprises, how they've been derived and how to write your first web service. It concludes with a short piece on when and when not to use web services. Essentially just an introduction to topics that are covered in the rest of the book, it's a quick 101 on the subject.Chapters 2 to 4 look in greater depth at three of the standards that make up the base platform - XSD, SOAP and WSDL. At 160 pages for the three topics, they are unsurprisingly covered in great detail and in a clear manner that leaves you with only thoughts of what to write first instead of the questions the chapters haven't answered. Sometimes the answers are in between the lines for you to figure out yourself but they are there.With the base technologies out of the way, Chapters 5 and 6 demonstrate its two 'web service toolkits', the SOAP Toolkit for COM developer and the .asmx functionaltity that's part of ASP.NET. The COM chapter is particularly good, working through both high and low-level APIs in some detail but without forgetting that it's introducing readers to something new and assuming prior knowledge.Chapters 7 to 9 build on the platform built in chapter 6, teaching us how .NET allows us to work with SOAP Headers and Faults, and how to move data around with web services using ADO .NET. These two subjects are separated by a look at how we can use a WSDL document and the wsdl tool in .NET as a start point to create both an abstract service implementation and service proxies for our clients.Again these are good chapters, especially the one on ADO.NET, but the other two seemed a little isolated. SOAP Headers are vital to the growth of web services and SOAP Faults are necessary for exception handling, but the discussion seemed to exist in its own small chapter simply because it didn't fit anywhere else. Why not expand the discussion to include or at least give a hint as to the headers that will be standardized soon. Likewise, in a chapter which talks about interface generation from a WSDL document, why not also mention the automatic generation of classes from the schema inside the WSDL file? A missed opportunit

This book is very concise and clear. Don't care about the use of VB and VB.NET. If you are a managed C++ or a C# developer, you'll appreciate a lot the information on this book -in the same manner than a VB/VB.NET developer would. The title fits to the book perfectly: it's all about making XML WebServices to work in practice. It starts with the basics, covering in some depth XSD, WSDL and SOAP (chapters 2, 3 and 4) -very useful reading, really.Chapter 5 talks about the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit. It's the less useful for me, but maybe for those wanting to publish COM components as Web Services this chapter is a must.In chapter 6 the author explains you the basics of creating web services with .NET and the advantages of creating them with ASP.NET. Useful topics such as data caching, distributed transactions, namespaces and parameter encoding are covered in a very straight-to-the-point manner. I loved this chapter, in spite that it's not very long. Chapter 7 follows, explaining how to use SOAP headers in your web service and your clients. There you'll learn how to easily extend your web service's calls with custom SOAP headers -which can be used to pass custom information between the client and the server. Very useful examples in VB.NET.In chapter 8 the author explains how to implement interfaces in web services -even, how to implement more than one interface by a single web service. I've found this chapter to be a very interesting one, since I come from the COM world and I really wanted this feature of implementing multiple interfaces to be available in web services. I didn't know I could do this -although I had already tried to "patch" it with my own implementation.Chapter 9 is worth the price of the entire book. After all, it talks about the main application of web services in practice: passing data between the client and the server. It explains how to pass DataSets, XML documents and object arrays, among other things.In chapter 10 SOAP extensions are covered in depth. Authorization using SOAP extensions is explained there. This is a VERY useful chapter. On the other hand, chapter 11 covers UDDI. Great chapters, both of them! From chapter 11 I liked the topic "Publishing Your Web Services with UDDI" a lot.Chapter 12 goes into some details about interoperating with other SOAP toolkits, including some issues you may find. If you intend to make a web service written in .NET easily callable from any client (Java client, or whatever), this chapter is a must.Chapter 13 explains the steps for creating a web service, from design to implementation issues. It's a tad short, in my opinion. For example, topics such as Usage Accounting are barely covered.Appenix B adds some useful information, including tips and tricks for .NET developers, and traps you should avoid when developing a web service.The entire book is a must-have in your developer's bookshelf. It touches everything respect to web services, and I guess that this will be my preferred book on the topic

....get this one I can't think of a better book on Web Services, even if you aren't a VB developer. Yasser puts together just the right mix of theory, technical data, and real-world examples.For a book that's only about 500 pages, he packs in an incredible amount of good information. Not only will you learn (and actaully understand SOAP), but you'll learn all about important topics like interface-based Web Service development and Web Service interop using non-MS SOAP APIs.It's great material for both begineer and veteran alike. Run and buy it now!

Excellent book. Makes everything easy. A chapter on XSD types makes more sence then some thick books on the topic. Lots of usefull examples and utilities on the CD. Very well written with "professional" attitude: nothing redundand, pure essence. Same level as "Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed" - my favorite book.