[nflug] PHP Web Services

[MICHAEL CANZONERI]

It really depends on the application.  I will give three of what I think
are the most common examples:

1.  You are doing some sort of mashup where you are including data from
another web company.  This would be like having your flickr pictures on
your website, doing Amazon to Half.com price comparisons, or having a
Google map on your site.  I like to think of this as sort of using
semi-processed data because it is created for (and you are using it for)
a very specific purpose.

2.  This is similar to number one but a little different.  I am drawing
a distinction between using a service that is made available from an
already existing web site/application/community (Flickr, Amazon) with
semi-processed data and one that is simply meant to be a source of raw
data.  These are the systems that hold things like realty data, weather
data, GIS data, or search data.  (There realize there is a lot of grey
area between number 1 and 2.  It really depends on your use.)  You use
these when you need a raw data feed that you are doing something with
like correlating tempeture data to GIS or spacial data.

3.  Storage.  This is a newer concept than just getting data from
another service so I think it deserves to be separate from the rest. 
Amazons S3 service is the big one that comes to mind.  This would be for
storing your data (user created or otherwise) on a system that would
provide a (presumably) better level of availability and have a lower
retrieval latency over the network as a whole.  SmugMug was featured on
Scoble Show some time ago and is a customer of S3.  MS and Linden Labs
also use S3 for serving and storing data.

Always keep in mind whether or not a certain service is really
supported and maintained.  You most likely do not want to run a big
mission critical app with a data feed from
Jimmy's-web-service-that-he-runs-on-an-old-pc-in-his-basement-and-uses-DynDns-so-you-can-get-to-it
Inc. just because he has some rare sort of data you need.  I know that
is kind of obvious but when a client wants to have some cool voodoo
magic app and that is the only place that seems to have said data it can
be very tempting.

Good luck.

Mike Canzoneri



>>> fkumro at gmail.com 12/13/06 3:40 PM >>>
Just a random question for fellow php programmers. When would *you*
use a web service? Just wondering how different people choose to use
such things...

-- 
Frank
Shenanigans!!
I do the voodoo that I do do with sudo!
http://www.syncoder.com 
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