Web Service Development for the Masses
Sam Adams, a Distinguished Engineer at IBM, gave a second presentation to the Extreme Blue interns today. He demonstrated a project (warning - this download is a much older release) he and his team has been developing for the past few years. The web application allows users to drag and drop “cards” that have particular functions to expedite the creation of new web services.
What value does this create? One particular example he created was creating a search for “SARS” and his mother’s hometown with Google. If any results were found, he used a webservice provided by Across Communications to call his cellphone. Sure - any half decent programmer with a knowledge of PHP, DOM, XML, Google’s APIs…could make this. However, the simplicity and robustness of his design allows even a novice to create useful and unique services. He also showed how to create a custom MashUp websites with a few clicks.