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Update (1-Nov-09): Since writing this post nearly a year ago, I’ve come to realise that I was labouring under quite a few misconceptions myself, about REST. Spotting them all is left as an exercise for the reader. But I’d rather leave it here with this caveat, than remove it and pretend I knew better all along…

Michael Little at Fliquid Studios recently posted an interesting comparison of SOAP vs REST which may have accidentally perpetuated a misconception about SOAP that I believe is fairly common. This post is a response to that and a expanded version of a comment I left on Michael’s site.

The confusion arises from the difference between the communication layer (SOAP) and the databinding layer (aka marshalling/unmarshalling) which is responsible for mediating between language-native data structures and XML. Michael is writing from a PHP point of view, and I’m not sure what PHP SOAP toolkits are like in this regard, but fortunately in the Java world the distinction between the two is made clear, and we have various options for each — although JAX-WS for SOAP and JAXB for databinding are the industry standard specifications.

(continue reading…)