Science fiction

Jon presents the WS-* party line that REST is all well and good when you’re doing simple point-to-point stuff; but when you have sophisticated policy-based security that you need to manage across a network fabric rich with intermediaries, you need more, and that’s what WS-* is for.

Well yes, except for that kind of policy-driven intermediary-rich environment remains, more or less, science fiction; I personally have never observed such a thing actually working, and I have little faith that the WS-* theorists, meeting in their invitation-only back rooms, cooking up and superseding specs, are going to get it right first time based on zero real-world experience. Particularly with an abomination like WSDL in at the very core.

Hey Jon, our criticisms of WS-* are specific and have to do with issues of process and stability and technical quality and a demonstrated lack of interoperability. It is badly-engineered technology, using it will increase the likelihood that your project fails, and it is not suitable for use by conscientious IT professionals.

— Tim Bray (emphasis his)