[plt-scheme] ipc among mzscheme processes

Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk at cs.brown.edu> writes at 10:45 11-May-2003 -0400:
> That's fine, but that still doesn't strike me as a good reason to not
> use XML-RPC.

That was the answer to the "non-use" of XML question.  The answer to the
question of why not use XML-RPC is that it doesn't satisfy functionality
requirements.

> Isn't the whole point of wire protocols that they permit a certain
> degree of cross-language operation?  Wouldn't using XML-RPC make it
> easier for, say, a Java client to use your Scheme utility?

Nope.  Even if I kludged XML-RPC to support sending the kind of XML I
will need back and forth (e.g., package the real XML protocol in a
string field of the fake one), it's just as easy to give Java users a
library that does the real protocol directly as it is to give them a
library that does the real protocol wrapped in an XML-RPC
tunnel/envelope.

In this case, I think the engineering and marketing aspects of
interoperability can be covered without sacrificing the benefits of
developing in Scheme.  And I don't think XML-RPC is very high on many
buzzword compliance checklists.

Also, interoperability-wise, I'm more concerned with interoperating with
the emerging Semantic Web standards, which contribute useful technology
and infrastructure, than with XML-RPC, which just gets in the way of that.

-- 
                                             http://www.neilvandyke.org/