Re: c and webservices?


In article <gsst83xtdt.ln2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Flash Gordon <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
> The C language has absolutely no abilities for
> the most fundamental things required for a web service, such as
> communications over a network.

This is arguably true (there's a possible quibble over "fundamental"
and "required"), but not necessarily relevant. While network
communication is "fundamental" to web services, that does not mean
that a provider or consumer of web services need be responsible for
network communications.

Consider, for example, a portable C program running in an environment
where stdin and stdout are the required network communications
channel. Such environments are actually very common: inetd and its
analogues, CGI programs, and so forth. (There are client-side
examples as well.)

It might not be practical, for most applications, to provide or
consume web services entirely in portable C, in an environment where
this is possible; but I'd like to avoid the false generalization that
any task (such as using web services) which is associated with some
facility outside the C standard therefore cannot be done in portable
C. Even here we must entertain various unguaranteed expectations
about the execution environment, QoI, and so forth.

I'm of the opinion that the original question itself was marginally
topical (if considered as "can this be done in standard C?"), but
answers other than redirections to implementation-specific groups
or those that describe what standard C does not provide (eg network
communications, XML parsing, etc) would be off-topic. h's claim
of topicality for the larger question ("how can this be done in C?")
on the grounds that all C programs are topical is spurious, of
course, for the reasons you outline and we're all familiar with, but
it's legitimate (again, IMO) for someone to ask here whether some
task *can* be accomplished in standard C. And in that event I for
one would prefer to see responses that are a bit more cautious in
delimiting what is and is not covered by the standard language.

An ideal response, in my opinion, might be along the lines of "it is
possible, in some environments, to consume web services in a portable
C program, which is what we discuss here; but in practice you are
likely to want to use implementation- and environment-specific
features and facilities, and you should ask about those in a news-
group relevant to your platform".

--
Michael Wojcik michael.wojcik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Unlikely prediction o' the day:
Eventually, every programmer will have to write a Java or distributed
object program.
-- Orfali and Harkey, _Client / Server Programming with Java and CORBA_
.

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