In Christoph Schittko's post about CapeClear's latest WSDL editor he writes
CapeClear recently released a new version of their free WSDL editor. The new version allows adding XML Schemas which, in my mind, was definitely a much needed feature...The only gripe I have is that the new version is no longer called WSDL Editor. Now it's the SOA editor
SOA is now a much overhyped and meaningless buzzword. The entire industry is hyping XML Web Services all over again without pointing out anything of much concrete worth. Microsoft is right up there as well with publications like Microsoft Architects Journal whose last issue had 3 of 5 articles with "Service Oriented" in the title with at least one other being probably the quintessential work on Service Oriented Architecture, Metropolis.
There are basically only 2 people's whose opinions about the mostly meaningless Service Oriented hoopla I consider worth anything. Pat Helland who was talking about service oriented architecures before the buzzword had a name and Don Box because he's the first person I've seen do a decent job of trying to distill the service oriented fundamentals (see A Guide to Developing and Running Connected Systems with Indigo).
Don's fundamentals
make a lot of sense to me. The only problem I have with Don is that he is working on Indigo which is anything from 1.5 to 2 years from shipping depending on who you're listening to but Microsoft is pimping SOA today. I've talked to him about doing a bit more writing service oriented development with existing technologies and even offered to cowrite if he can't find the time. Unfortunately I've been really really busy (we are short one PM and a dev on my immediate team, speaking of which WE ARE HIRING!!!) so haven't been very good at nagging him to do more writing. Hopefully once we lock down for Whidbey beta 1 I'll have some free time until the beta 2 deluge begins.