We'll be there. Just wish I had rented a kilt!

Crap! Wrong post.

I've used web services to imitate an NNTP server to give support newsgroups for my product (an outlook add-in nntp client). I've also built into it a web-service to forward nntp requests to the real nntp server for people behind firewalls which don't open 119.

While SOAP over SMTP is a really neat way to create a store-n-forward, asynchronous web services infrastructure in place of proprietary WebSphere MQ or MSMQ or Tibco, the security implications are pretty frightening. Just when you were done plugging the holes arising from XML-over-HTTP, now you've got the potential for what looks like email messages making RPC calls...

Awww, c'mon Becky - surely this ain't new to you? If memory serves from my Iona days Peter Morgan implemented SOAP over SMTP back in '01 (or was it '00?), mostly because his laptop of the time had sendmail but not enough horsepower to support a servlet container...

Quite honestly, this is the 4th cycle of distributed computing technology that I have lived through. So there is rarely a time, when I haven't already seen some semblance of similar distributed computing technology.

Peter did implement a SOAP/SMTP stack. Was it ever used in production? Did he encounter the problems that come with email servers and clients today. E.g. the security infrastructure in Windows and Outlook.

Honestly, the new and cool thing about Web services has yet to be fully exploited. I am less interested in the enabling technology, than in the new apps people are building. The simplicity and low barrier of entry ($) of Web services is making it possible for people to invest in new types of apps that before were simply too costly to develop and maintain. SOAP/SMTP is still not simple and there are a lot of problems with invoking Web services over SMTP. I am curious to know if anyone is finding the technology useful today.

As far as App Design Patterns goes. I think that Scott Short has a good idea about the future direction. At the MGB conference in Atlanta we spent time talking about the use of MetaData and headers.

It would be interesting to see some designs where the cookie trail is abandoned and state is carried in the header. Every intermediary that changes a message is required to leave logging information right within the message and sign it. Then you would never have to look at an audit log again. Instead, the historical record if how a message has been augmented or where it has been is right there signed in the message. This is relevant to SMTP, but it is potentially a radical shift in how people approach app design. Simple enabling technology.