Web Services and message-oriented applications

Eric Newcomer:

"While the RPC-oriented Web services stack is getting built out, and the industry is fighting over proposals for transactions, reliability, and notification[2], Web services are still very useful for basic message-oriented applications, including SOAs built using asynchronous protocols."

I believe that asynchronous protocols are the future of SOAs. Some time soon, it is to be hoped, that the industry will realise that building out the RPC-oriented Web Services stack will never make RPC a sane way to build vast, high-latency, decentralised distributed computing solutions. In English - RPC is just plain wrong for Internet class Web Services. On an Intranet, where you are in control of the end points, you can make it work, given enough time and money but if thats what you want to do, use J2EE or DCOM or CORBA. There is nothing magic about Web Services for RPC other than a whole new layer of headaches.
If you want to look at a cheap, solid, scalable way to do distributed computing, look no further than the combination of HTTP and asynchronous messaging using business level XML documents. The beauty of this, is that it is both Intranet and Internet class at the same time. Work with the web - not against it. Its resources + names for resources + an application protocol (not a transport protocol) that make it work.