A complete guide to web services in one, short paragraph

I cannot sum it all up better than Tim Bray has:

"No matter how hard I try, I still think the WS-* stack is bloated, opaque, and insanely complex. I think it’s going to be hard to understand, hard to implement, hard to interoperate, and hard to secure."

Yup. That pretty much covers it. The whole WS standards thing has more moving parts than a 747. Much of it recently invented, untested and unproven in the real world.

Given that there are no exceptions to Gall's Law:

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.

I believe WS-YouMustBeJoking is doomed to collapse under its own weight. Good riddance to it.

Why has this situation come about? Because smart people had neural spasms? No. Because smart people realise that this stuff is *real* important and commercial agendas are at work all over the map.

The most important document to read if you want to understand the WS-IfThisIsProgressImAMonkeysUncle cacophony is How to wage and win a standards war by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian.