Thought this might be an interesting exercise to review what I did in Warcraft in 2006, get some sense of er … how much spare time I spent on it :D

Sources for this article are my screen shots taken at the time (some in my gallery ), this blog (formerly http://beattiewarcraft.blogspot.com/ ), my guild dkp site for items won and raids attended.

2 days later I finish this beast of a post, well, 2 sleeps later ;)

January 2006

Fairly busy month this one. I attended a fair few raids and picked up a few items in them too. We were starting out in BWL and still doing MC and Ony runs to help gear folks up. The big news on the horizon was the impending arrival of the AQ dungeons and the silithus quests. My posts on WoW during this time look like they were mostly links and quotes – lazy huh?

What screen shots I do have seem to be of Silithus, Onyxia and BWL. All good fun.

Point of note – this is where I got my first piece of Tier 1 cenarion gear.

There’s a nice shot here of vael dead

Posts:

• hidden-quests-in-wow
• homework-on-wow
• druid feral gear
• the-ahn-qiraj-tailgate
• gamespy-world-of-warcraft-level-60-quest-guide

Raids attended (12, 2 drops):

Date	Target	Drops
29/01/2006	BWL
26/01/2006	Onyxia
26/01/2006	BWL
22/01/2006	BWL
22/01/2006	Ony/Domo/Rag
19/01/2006	MC	Aged Core Leather Gloves
15/01/2006	BWL
15/01/2006	MC after break
09/01/2006	BWL
08/01/2006	Molten core and Ony
05/01/2006	BWL
02/01/2006	MC-Geh to Golemagg	Cenarion Spaulders, Seal of the Archmagus

February 2006

AQ seemed to kick in in this month and we our early expeditions into AQ20. Guess that one was a full guild organised even as I recall it swiftly becoming an off-target raid thing – i.e. not a primary target. Also at this time was the lunar new year and the coins quests, speculation over the role of the nozdormu rep and lots of discussions about epics and being addicted and stuff. Looks like this might be when I started reading Tobold’s blog (edit: it was last month – the hidden quests link took me there in January!).

Got some pics of hakkar dying during this month. Also the Broodlord run in bwl seems to have been the flavour of the month – but we got him right enough . I also had the good fortune of attending much of the AQ gate opening exercise . On top of all that the lunar festival had it’s good points and it’s bad points .

Posts:

• coin-of-ancestry
• brood-of-nozdormu-update
• tobold-s-mmorpg-blog-epic-corruption
• emerald-dream-server-community-new-dungeons
• beware-there-be-dragons-games-reviews-technology-smh-com-au

Raids attended (12, 2 drops):

Date	Target	Drops
26/02/2006	AQ20
23/02/2006	Onyxia
22/02/2006	black Wing Lair
19/02/2006	Onyxia
16/02/2006	Onyxia	Onyxia Hide Backpack
16/02/2006	BWL
13/02/2006	Black Wing Lair
12/02/2006	Onyxia + Silithus
05/02/2006	BWL
05/02/2006	MC	Wristguards of Stability
03/02/2006	BWL
02/02/2006	Onyxia

March 2006

A quick look back at http://www.dawnraiders.com/ shows this is the month we first killed chromaggus and were looking at doing Nefarius. Lots more loot for craghewn this month and a fairly high raid attendence – though few blog posts…

One point of note – I do recall bidding on that scorcerous dagger on a whim, min-bid so thought I wouldn’t get it. Never really did use it to be honest apart from when I wanted to use my off-hand book.

Oh, and my first piece of Stormrage druid gear – nice. With the other two piece of cenarion gear I got my first set bonus too.

Also during this month I / we started attending going to AQ20 in earnest on non-raid days. This would be when I started the grind for the gear available in Silithus.

Posts:

* you-play-world-of-warcraft-you-re-hired

Raids attended (18, 6 drops):

Date	Target	Drops
30/03/2006	BWL (Razor, Vael, Broodlord and Firemaw)
27/03/2006	BWL (Chromaggus)
26/03/2006	BWL
26/03/2006	BWL	Interlaced Shadow Jerkin
26/03/2006	Onyxia
23/03/2006	BWL (Razor, Vael, Broodlord)
20/03/2006	BWL
20/03/2006	Onyxia
19/03/2006	MC	Stormrage Legguards, Cenarion Gloves
19/03/2006	BWL
16/03/2006	Onyxia
16/03/2006	BWL
13/03/2006	BWL Maw/Gor/Roc
12/03/2006	MC	Sorcerous Dagger
09/03/2006	BWL	Cenarion Bracers (from guild bank)
05/03/2006	Molten core
05/03/2006	BWL	Cenarion Boots
02/03/2006	BWL	Stormrage Belt

April 2006

Post wise not a busy month – but not surprising as my wife’s and my birthday both appear in this month. I note that I played on my birthay and got some loot, didn’t play on my wife’s birthday too (phew!). So this month saw our first excursion over to AQ40 and also bought me 3 more pieces of stormrage gear – you’ll note that I replaced the cenarion boots a little too quickly in this month. So, 4 pieces of stormrage and 2 of cenarion – suddenly doing very well in gearing myself up for raiding. Raid wise this month was largely concerned with a little AQ40 and trying to kill the prophet, and also trying to kill nef off finally. From the screen shots I deduce I did make some time for some zul’gurub runs and a excursions into AQ20.

Posts:

• Shifting blogs around

Raids attended (10, 4 drops):

Date	Target	Drops
30/04/2006	BWL
28/04/2006	Bwl	Stormrage Handguards
23/04/2006	BWL
23/04/2006	MC
20/04/2006	BWL	Stormrage Boots
17/04/2006	AQ40
17/04/2006	Onyxia	Stormrage Cover
13/04/2006	BWL	Head of the Broodlord Lashlayer
06/04/2006	BWL
03/04/2006	Onyxia

May 2006

No blogging from me at all this month and very light on the raiding still. I guess real life got busy at this point and as I recall I was doing some projects with friends at this time, plus there was the whole wedding organising thing going on. Even so secured myself a very nice staff that served as my main weapon for a good part of the year.

Raiding wise looks like this was the month we finally downed Nefarius and finally cleared all Black Wing Lair. In AQ20 we killed the big dude Ossirian and I completed the quest to return his head. So that would have been when I got my Amulet of the Shifting Sands – sweet!

Posts:

None.

Raids attended (9, 1 drop):

Date	Target	Drops
29/05/2006	MC – After Maggie
28/05/2006	Onyxia
28/05/2006	AQ40
25/05/2006	BWL
22/05/2006	BWL
21/05/2006	BWL
14/05/2006	BWL (Chrom)
12/05/2006	Bwl
07/05/2006	BWL	Shadow Wing Focus Staff

June 2006

This month saw the arrival of the city of naxxaramus to azeroth. There are some pictures of the naxxaramus event here . This was also the month I started using fraps for my screen captures and my videos of my warcraft fun, hence a bunch of posts with videos. Seems like I was raiding, doing a little pvp here and there and continuing the grind in silithus for the goodies available in that desert region.

Gear wise really coming along – 2 more piece of stormrage gear gives me the 5 set piece bonus along with a little nature resistance gear to boot.

Posts:

Bunch of videos posted (okay – so I’d just got hold of fraps at this point ;) )

• wsg
• naxx
• continuing the Silithus grind

Others:

• blizzard to do another mmog?
• feral off-hands

Raids attended (14, 4 drops):

Date	Target	Drops
29/06/2006	BWL	Taut Dragonhide Gloves , Stormrage Bracers
26/06/2006	Nax
25/06/2006	Molten Core
25/06/2006	BWL Evening
22/06/2006	BWL
19/06/2006	Bwl
18/06/2006	BWL – after break
15/06/2006	Molten Core
11/06/2006	AQ40
08/06/2006	BWL	Stormrage Pauldrons
05/06/2006	Onyxia
05/06/2006	AQ40
04/06/2006	AQ40	Beetle Scaled Wristguards
01/06/2006	BWL

July 2006

Quote from here

Not actually written much about WoW in this blog of late so thought I’d get some thoughts down while the mood took me.

For those that don’t know I have a level 60 druid in the Emerald dream server. I’m largely kitted up with tier 2 gear now (except the breastplate from nef) and I’m starting to get involved in some of the pvp battlegrounds stuff.

First new is Dawnraiders (my guild) took down Razuvius, first boss in Naxx. This is an amazing achievement and we’re only the third guild on that server to achieve this. I’m proud to say I was there for the kill and must admit I was surprised when he died – easy when you know how and all that.

Second is the arrival of 1.12 – “the drums of war”. This will be simply awesome for me since I’ve been trying to get into pvp a bit more and the share battlegrounds and world pvp objectives will keep me occupied in my spare time.

Happy to say I’m still enjoying the game. Feel free to look at some of the videos I’ve recorded too.

So, still videoing stuff. Looks like I was still hitting ZG a fair bit and we were taking our first tentative steps into Naxx. Found some videos showing me using the groupbuttons addon, man that was soooo slow. It was better than nothing but my current User Interface set up is so much cleaner. Still, we live and learn. Got plenty of videos of us dying to Raz here but as stated, we got him in the end. very nice.

It was just at the end of this month that I hit exalted with the Zandalar tribe and got my healer bonus on my shoulders. Sweet moment.

Posts:

• raggy kill vid
• key post on my progress

Raids attended (12, 1 drop):

Date	Target	Drops
24/07/2006	Naxx
23/07/2006	BWL – after break
23/07/2006	Naxx
20/07/2006	BWL	Ring of Blackrock
17/07/2006	Naxx
16/07/2006	Naxx – After break
13/07/2006	BWL
09/07/2006	Naxx
06/07/2006	BWL
02/07/2006	BWL – after break
02/07/2006	Naxx
02/07/2006	MC

August 2006

Big month for me this, lots fo raids which I’m a little surprised at given it was a month before my wedding but guess I had time. Maybe it was a fear of not be able to play after that drove me, still, think I over did this month considering.

This post highlighted some of my key goals and was really the start of me driving for a high +heal and getting some stats up. As stated I’d targetted AV and the reputation rewards as primary goals with some secondry ones around the other battle grounds. By this stage I’d got exalted with the Cenarion Hold faction and picked up the bits of the unending life set including the Mace of unending life which was so worth the effort.

As noted towards the end of this month I’d picked up an even better mace for healing and so the burn was on to get a suitable off-hand. As it stands I’m still using the Lok’amir il Romathis and the Lei of the Lifegiver .

Thanks to Zirze and Akarr in the guild for helping me out getting my Idol of Rejuvenation from Lower Blackrock Spire in the early part of this month. Again – still using that.

Aha, it was also at the end of this month that I started to tweak my UI some and get ClickHeal working. It no longer functions now though since the 2.x patches but I think this provided a marked improvement in my effectiveness. (I now use Clique which is awesome!)

Oh – and got another boss in Naxx down and started work on the widow boss in the spider wing!

Doh! how could I forget – got my first bit of Tier 3 gear! woot! Dreamwalker Boots

Posts:

• tobold link on addiction
• expansion preview news
• Plans for my warcraft character
• Anub’rekhan dead
• Got me a new mace!

Raids attended (22, 4 drops):

Date	Target	Drops
31/08/2006	NAX
31/08/2006	BWL
28/08/2006	NAX
27/08/2006	BWL	Lok’amir il Romathis
27/08/2006	BWL
24/08/2006	ONY
24/08/2006	BWL
24/08/2006	NAX
21/08/2006	NAX
20/08/2006	BWL
20/08/2006	NAX
14/08/2006	Naxx
13/08/2006	Naxx – After break	Desecrated Boots
13/08/2006	BWL	Malfurion’s Blessed Bulwark
13/08/2006	Naxx
10/08/2006	BWL
07/08/2006	Naxx
06/08/2006	Naxx
06/08/2006	BWL
03/08/2006	Naxx
03/08/2006	Onyxia	Head of Onyxia
03/08/2006	BWL

September 2006

Wedding month – not much WoW here ;) There was plenty of speculation about what the expansion would bring though as the link to the talents preview suggests. Not sure if tree form had been announced at this point. Seem to recall that popped up a little later.

I’m fairly sure the guild downed the Widow this month but I wasn’t around for any of those runs, it wasn’t till early October that I saw her dead.

Posts:

• some naxx video
• new druid talents preview

Raids attended (6):

Date	Target	Drops
21/09/2006	BWL
14/09/2006	NAX
14/09/2006	BWL
10/09/2006	BWL
10/09/2006	BWL
04/09/2006	NAX

October 2006

Big month kill wise this – saw the two final bosses in the Naxxaramus Spider wing killed. Both are fun manic fights that require alot of co-ordination and team work. Good fun.

Also this month we ventured back to AQ40 and killed a boss we hadn’t done before – Sartura. That was the source of one of my two upgrades this month. By October with the gear I’d amassed it was getting pretty hard to find upgrades. This month I picked up the Naxx healing ring (which I regretted – wanted another piece of dreamwalker gear more and missed out as a result) and also the helm from sartura. Actually, I was very lucky with that – and a little cheeky. With hitting exalted status with zandalar and having burnt out doing runs in there for over 6 months I’d not joined any of the ZG groups in a while. Now the best enchant for a head piece is available in ZG. So off I trot with my shiny new Creeping vine helm to ZG and I roll for the item for the enchant and get it first go. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve not been back since either – lack of time really. Still, all for the good fo the guild and my quest for huge healing skill!

Of course halloween kicked in at the end of this month which is always fun in Azeroth.

Oh – and by this stage I’d got the reputation I needed with the Stormpike lot and was able to get my Stormpike Battle Charger . I picked that up sometime after getting my Lei of the Lifegiver so I must have got that by now – fulfilling part of my goals from back in August.

Posts:

• my first kill of the widow in naxx
• warcraft update from me
• killed maexxna!
• druid tree form announcement
• piccy of a dead battleguard sartura

Raids attended (14, 2 drops):

Date	Target	Drops
30/10/2006	aq40
30/10/2006	nax
29/10/2006	bwl
29/10/2006	nax
23/10/2006	NAX
22/10/2006	BWL
19/10/2006	NAX	Band of Unanswered Prayers
16/10/2006	aq40	Creeping vine helm
15/10/2006	NAX
15/10/2006	BWL
09/10/2006	NAX
08/10/2006	NAX
05/10/2006	NAX
02/10/2006	NAX

November 2006

This month saw a couple more visits to aq40, but mostly farming in BWL and continuing escapades in Naxx. I finally got the last piece of the stormrage set, which replaced my Zandalar one – er, the Zandalar Haruspex’s Tunic .

Also got my second bit of tier 2 gear so finally got that tier 3 bonus. (see Dreamwalker Handguards )

In other news the 2.x patch was announced so I hopped on the test realms to give it a crack. Generally very pleased with how it played and stuff – really considering a moonkin build for levelling but we’ll see.

Posts:

• maexxna kill vid
• trying out tree form in the test realm
• moonkin trials in test realm

Raids attended (15, 2 drops):

Date	Target	Drops
26/11/2006	bwl	Stormrage Chestguard
26/11/2006	nax
26/11/2006	bwl
20/11/2006	nax
19/11/2006	bwl
19/11/2006	aq40
16/11/2006	Naxx
13/11/2006	nax
12/11/2006	nax
12/11/2006	bwl
09/11/2006	nax
06/11/2006	nax	Desecrated Handguards
05/11/2006	bwl
05/11/2006	aq40
02/11/2006	nax

December 2006

And here we are. The new patch and associated issues with addons not working, december, christmas, new expansion out soon – all meant raiding was a little light. As it turned out my efforts to become a good raid healer paid off, with the help from the patch 2.x tree form I was able to do some very effective healing – most pleased. Also the recent break between christmas and new year meant that some of the outdoor encounters we typically didn’t get a look in on were up and we were able to down the 4 green dragons that hang around in Azeroth.

finally – there’s this post which has taken more time than I’d care to admit to stick together.

Oh – and one bit of loot for my spell dps in case I do go all feathery come the expansion

Oo – how could I forget – we killed Noth in Naxxaramus this month too … :D

Posts:

• top healer!
• killed all the green dragons in azeroth!
• this mammoth beast of a post

Raids attended:

Date	Target	Drops
18/12/2006	bwl
14/12/2006	AQ40	Leggings of Immersion
11/12/2006	nax
10/12/2006	nax
10/12/2006	bwl
10/12/2006	bwl
03/12/2006	nax

Summary and the future

Well, been a big year. Seems like I played alot more than I thought, had considered myself quite softcore and I am less present online than some of my guildmates but seems I played alot all the same.

Achieved a fair bit though with the help of my guild. Started out the year without any of the raid dungeon sets and finished with bits of Tier 3, Tier 2 and some AQ40 odds and sods. Started the year just out of MC and starting BWL and at the end making good progress into Naxxaramus. I’ve seen most of the end game content now apart from some wings of Naxx which I’d still like to see but we’ll see what the expansion does to that. I’ve also grinded (spelling?) out faction with some of the key folks in Azeroth and got lots of shiny gear that way.

I managed to achieve most things I wanted apart from some of the PvP stuff – simply didn’t have the time or the will to put in what was needed on some of that but I think thats fine, I’m glad there was a line I didn’t cross ;)

Looking forward to 2007 now, I started the game levelling up and discovering things a fresh back in 2004/2005 and the expansion will bring back some of that fun for me, except I’ll now have 60+ friends to do with rather than the 6 friends I started out with back then .

I think for the first time I may roll another character and play them semi-seriously. I’m an oddity in my guild in that I have 1 character I focus on, no time for another – but a female draenei shaman character appeals to me so we will see what time I get.

I must admit, without dawnraiders I would likely have stopped playing a while ago and wouldn’t have had as much fun in the game, so ta to the guild and looking forward to more warcraft fun in 2007.

Edit: In case your wondering here’s my profile: Craghewn [Emerald Dream]

been a while since I played on it but loco roco is generally fun on trains and stuff and I had an inkling that I might play it over the holiday but that didn’t transpire.

Still, went to start it up and I get a blank screen and a green power light and thats it. It won’t turn off save for pulling battery out – oh my. So, battery out for a bit and let it chill out – lets see what happens. This morning pop it in – same thing – buggered. In fact the common colloquialism is to ‘brick’ it – i.e. render it as useful and active as a brick. Sweet. So some google searches later and not much turns up save for ripping it apart and adding some funky hardware or replacing the mother board. I ring sony who want £65 for a new one as I’m 2 months out of warranty (suspicious says I).

What was I to do? Could I have unknowingly bricked my PSP? Apparently this is far far too easy to do. Is there no way of fixing it???

happy ending In my case it seems I hadn’t – a closer look revealed that the PSP was still looking at the memory card and the UMD disk was still spinning up! There’s hope – perhaps I could boot from something, some how?? On a whim I stuck a different game in the unit and hey presto, PSPs up and working again – yay. Hmm… wonder how many folks would have paid Sony the £65?

My del.icio.us links relating to the PSP – you’ll note recent ones are concerned with bricking it

With all the other guilds on holiday and a few of us around wanting a break we found we were able to get enough folks together to kill the green dragons around azeroth. First time for me so was a welcome change and a nice time spent raiding.

The wee man got old all of a sudden and was having difficulty bless him. He deteriorated over the past 24 hours and tonight we took him to vets, we decided the best thing was if he went to sleep peacefully. The others are still running around mad as ever, though we think Macy got worried about Sammy as she was calling to her as we were trying to get things sorted. A piccy of louie in his tank below.

On the face of it a win for REST but there isn’t a REST API. Commentry on the subject available here (from ongoing), here (o’reilly article linked from ongoing) and here (ex google dev linked from the o’reilly article).

The image here shows me just after chrom in BWL with the highest effective heal value (in combat, healing that wasn’t over-healing). I know that this isn’t the only indicator of a good healer in the game – it’s important that the right people are healed and kept alive, but I’m pleased that I was able to show sufficient focus and effectiveness in the raid to do this much healing. The figure got to over 800k healed after nef with me being top still but forgot to screen shot that :(

In short tree form with my gear rocks!

Lunchtime at work and just researching so thought I’d note down some of my findings. Well I’ve written and read a fair bit about web services lately and you can read some of my links on the subject of soa here. It occurred to me that while I have experience (positive at that) in writing, using, monkeying around with SOAP based RPC style services I haven’t got any in REST services – in spite of my growing support for that approach. So what exactly would a good REST interface look like?

Well off to google I went and you can see some of my findings at that del.icio.us link but I figured a list of links won’t help me recall my thoughts or where things were or what I thought was useful. So here I am writing about it in my lunch time.

• The RESTfulDesign article on this REST wiki is a good start, some handy hints. I must admit I like UML sometimes but actually doing detailed modelling in UML isn’t my idea of fun – I have a tendency to get to a high or medium level model, generate some code if I can and then code it and reverse engineer the detailed models if required. Side point really but a good step by step guide.
• This REST mistakes article gives the negative view of the REST approach and design principles. Reading through this and other less well written articles I started to form a view that these principles were opinion rather than written in stone, and arguably many design principles are just that.
• There appears to be a book in the making here too.

So I figure what interfaces are out there that are good.

• The Amazon web services site is quite impressive with an interesting array of services (er, not like SOA services, like stuff they offer ;) ) which actually should form the subject of a future blog entry. Anyhoos there are some links here for you to enjoy. I found aws zone’s tools really useful in understanding what the REST services look like and indeed the SOAP ones too. Enjoy. key point seems the aws stuff actually deviates from the above guidelines around URIs. The data’s all in the URI but only in the query string, I don’t think thats strictly speaking a good RESTy design. Saying that its live and heavily used so… – example URI: http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?Service=AWSECommerceService&SubscriptionId=[Your Subscription ID Here]&Operation=ItemSearch&Keywords=[A Keywords String]&SearchIndex=[A Search Index String]&Sort=[A Sort String]
• Amusingly the very tool I use to keep links has an API – there’s an article on the del.icio.us API which I’m reading that looks quite good. Of course the URI used on the first page annoyed me somewhat – https://api.del.icio.us/v1/tags/get – you’re calling it with a HTTP GET request!!! tsk. An interesting example of having the version number of the API encoded in the URI though and apart from the extraneous ‘get’ on the end it didn’t worry me. What did worry me was that you HTTP GET requests to change things in the system – a GET request to this URI https://api.del.icio.us/v1/tags/rename?old=Rails&new=rails would change the name of the tag which kind of doesn’t sit well with the idempotency (i.e. the second time you call it it’s technically an error condition) of the GET request. This URI gives you an insight into the URI structure by the way – version/resource/action?arguments. Gotta admit thought that the Ruby code to use the API to change the case of your del.icio.us tags is quite neat. Link to the del.icio.us api help page here.
• This search functionality was cited as an example of a REST interface and while its using URI’s and isn’t SOAPy and is HTTP etc. here’s how you retrieve a document from this: http://www.dlese.org/dds/services/ddsws1-1?verb=GetRecord&id=DLESE-000-000-000-001. So, query strings and using verbs and have the word get in the URI – the latter is swiftly becoming a bug bear of mine.
• Now this page on the sqlrest project seems to describe a system based on what I’ve read of REST. Of course, its just a framework, isn’t an API (and there fore possibly doesn’t belong here) and actually doesn’t deal with RPC style stuff. At least it does respect the HTTP verbs though.

Summary then? There are non-SOAP API’s out there that are using URI’s and HTTP to great success. Enterprises still prefer SOAP it seems, well thats my experience. However, there is far wider adoption of call this URI style interaction. As for REST APIs that meet the docs cited at the top I couldn’t seem to find any that were used in earnest. Most articles seem to suggest a mix of REST services and RPC style services is common it seems even simple applications (ish) like del.icio.us didn’t opt for or didn’t understand a full REST approach and went more RESTish instead. In truth, just assembling appropriate URIs appears to be a very easy way to get applications talking – perhaps my hang up regarding GET not changing the resource (as per the spec!) actually makes the interface hard enough to use that people wouldn’t? Deserves more thought.

Actions outstanding? Still need to find a good SOA definition or write one and put it here and now I’d like to actually find an application and put together a good REST design for it.

PS: quick note on the Amazon API

Similarly, Amazon.com’s web services are provided in two forms: one adhering to the formalisms of the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) web services stack, the other simply providing XML data over HTTP, in a lightweight approach sometimes referred to as REST (Representational State Transfer). While high value B2B connections (like those between Amazon and retail partners like ToysRUs) use the SOAP stack, Amazon reports that 95% of the usage is of the lightweight REST service.

From: http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228

As you can likely tell I’m catching up on my reading just now. Another insightful blogger posted this tome on SOA, REST and ROA which has put ROA on my list of things to look into. An interesting discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches. I too share the view that systems that dynamically bind themselves together from random data strewn around the internet and in UDDI repositories are pure fantasy at this time – and if they could do that they’d be AI and wouldn’t want the data represented in WSDL, XSD etc.

I’m guessing development environments are a subject of interest to any IT area. I’m a regular reader of Grady Booch’s blog and this post on CDE’s (as he calls them) caught my eye. Not actually looked very deeply at the linked alphaworks page or read his paper but it’s on my to do list and I thought it was worth noting here.

Sign of bad design I know but frankly I doubt everyone arriving at Craig Beattie’s web site would want to read my random stream of consciousness as it is. I figure any directions I can give can’t be a bad thing ;)

So there are a number of SOAP engines out there and they support lots of neat WS-* stuff. A recent development with Axis 2 is the purported support of REST natively within the implementation, indeed here is an article with a REST and Axis 2 living happily together.

I thought, oo, cool – best of both worlds. I did however approach with caution as I’d heard from one of my colleagues that there had been some dispute about the RESTiness of the implementation. So I read the article and go through the example and laugh heartily and the fundamental lack of understanding of the principles of REST. Indeed even in the wikipedia article, the section on resources in REST clearly describes a key principle and what is very very wrong with the example in the Axis article.

Whats wrong with it? Well, REST would say if you want to get the version from something you’d call http://somedomain/version with a GET. Simple. It need only have one node in the XML, perhaps version?

<version>1.0</version

Perhaps this would be sufficient?

Now look at the Axis example… The URL is:

http://127.0.0.1:8080/axis2/services/version/getVersion

Spectacular – the URL already tells you you’re dealing with version but to make doubly sure – getVersion on the end. (long live RPC)

and the response?

<ns:getVersionResponse>
    <return>
        1.0
    </return>
</ns:getVersionResponse>

hmm… the S in SOAP was supposed to stand for Simple. I would argue then that the Axis folks don’t really understand REST, and indeed this demonstrates to me some of the key failings of the WS-* movement. Still, I’ll admit the implementation was better than I was expecting.

Well Sammy and I met up with John and Tonia and went to see the Mediaeval Baebes over at Bush hall. It was a damn cracking evening, the young ladies and gentlemen put on a great show with lots of songs that are quickly becoming our favourites. John was new to the group but raved about em on the way home and Tonia enjoyed herself too. We spent some time talking to some of the lasses from the band (well, mostly Sammy and John did ;) ) and John fell in love :P. We had a bit of a mad rush to get Tonia to her train in the end but she made the 11.30 one so all was well.

It’s far too late in the evening now and I must away to bed but fyi – thoroughly recommend ‘em. Check out my links to their websites and you’ll note my comment is sat on their myspace web site.

jolly good fun :D

Mediaeval Baebes

Off to Bush Halls to see these fine folk tonight :D

My del.icio.us links on the subject

An amusing article on the dangers of wii playing. Dangers? Gamers get a little exercise and you get this whining ;o) Further amusing antics with reenactments are available from 1up.com. I like the back hand slash personally.

A quick look through my delicious links tagged soa will probably give you an idea of my stance on the subject. In an enterprise I do actually see some value in a set of standards that allow for security and interoperability and if pushed SOAP and the WS-* stack is better than nothing. It does however seem to be a machine for selling ‘stuff’ whether its a newfangled WebSphere ESB, or a shiny technology stack from Oracle, BEA, Microsoft even.

Now to be honest the use of the technology is so widespread I can’t avoid it. Whether it’s for talking to systems bought or to friends and family any enterprise is going to need to be able to deal with SOAP. Same is true of EDI or any other message format to be honest, and thats what SOAP is – it’s not an architecture, it’s not SOA, it’s just a message format thats somewhat over-engineered and is arguably expressed in the wrong language.

Now perhaps I’m a heretic and arguably this article calls for my superiors to sack me for these ridiculous thoughts.

In my opinion REST offers a much more concrete basis for a SOA. Some of the SOA funnies I have tagged are quite amusing but express many of the failings of SOAP quite elegently. I’ve included the sack your enterprise architects in there because it made me laugh out loud (actually it does make some good useful points too).

I think this article discusses rest and soap quite elegantly. I’m aware that I’ve had a rant about whats not a good basis for SOA and how nice REST is without really discussing SOA despite the title, but hey, it’s a broad subject – perhaps my next post should have a stab at my own definition of SOA.

I’m a little confused at the moment. When pushing a previous project of mine out initially we were looking at Axis but it wouldn’t interoperate with the WebSphere 4.x readily, and certainly not on Z/OS. Further we discovered that the SOAP implementation in WebSphere actually isn’t the apache one but rather a heavily tweaked IBM variant that ran considerably faster (they claimed faster than Axis) and actually put their RMI/IIOP implementation to shame, bless it.

So, I’ll admit I’m somewhat out of touch with WAS 5.x and the actual SOAP implementation there. I’m thinking questions like have IBM continued down their heavy tweaking path with their own implementation? Does it in fact operate in a friendly fashion with other SOAP implementations? What bits of WebSphere stop working, if any, as a result? I’m also aware that IBM claims you can use Axis with WAS 5.x but I haven’t read up on that either.

Addendum: A brief look at ibm.com leads me to believe they’re a strong supporter of Axis2 but trying to find any information on compatibility with WAS 5.1 seems to be well hidden. This website implies its a bit of an arse with WAS 5.1.

Will have to review this at some point.

Further addendum: This redbook provides a useful view of Axis on page 63, and on page 64 talks about the IBM web services implementation – seems they are continuing to build a taylored version. Makes sense I suppose since they’re in it for the money.

Well she's been to the vets now. Seems she may have a small cyst in her belly and lymphoma in both her kidneys. It's not operable and it's not worth putting her through the stress of dealing with the cyst, so for now, carry on. We'll keep an eye on her to ensure she's happy and do what we can for her till she's no longer comfy.

The whole incident around my blog being blocked at work, the possibly career limiting response from myself including claims this was a work related tool and subsequent thoughts left me with the impression I should start blogging movements and directions in my career – so all welcome the new career section to my blog (applaud as appropriate).

To date I’ve used a number of tools to help document my progress from web hosted CVs to word, the BCS careerbuilder and recently linkedin. The careerbuilder tool is the only one that really documents intended actions and goals but its not public and doesn’t really offer an avenue for discussion of documented thought that a blog does. So, what I’m going to be talking about in this section will hopefully form the bases for actions in the tools discussed above.

In addition to that LinkedIn also offers an avenue for folks from my past and current to get to my blog so I figured it my be useful to document some of how I got to the CV posted up there here – supporting material if you like.

Got 10 minutes while I wait for the taxi to my Christmas party so just posting in my blog. I’ll update on the websense thing later as there’s news there.

Peculiar thing today, colleague left amid a veil of disbelief. Most odd week it’s been and more so for him I would have thought but there was definitely a sense of it’s not going to happen and then it did – boiling a frog I think they call it?

So, sombre times at the Christmas party that I was in two minds whether to attend or not. To absent friends and all that…

oh – and good luck to him in his new wizzy role ;)

Well Macy is still ticking along. She’s now on monthly injections related to her kidneys, doesn’t eat the special old-lady-with-bad-kidney food from the vets but she is eating Whiskas senior in jelly, in gravy and occasionally whiskas oh so fishy as a treat. She’s doing well – still doesn’t like the stairs but is happy enough.

Fishies are fine as is Misty bless her. The wee mammals seem to be quite happy too.

We lost another fish to old age it seems. He’s been with us a long time. It did mean I had a tank cleaning job again last weekend. The remaining chaps seem fine though.