Sunday, February 25, 2007
Stake Conference
We had Stake Conference today and our Stake Presidency got released so Elder L. Tom Perry was there. I got to meet him! ( I sit up on the stand since I'm the Stake Primary President) This is the second Apostle I've gotten to meet! ( I met Elder Bednar in Arkansas) He is the most energetic person I've ever met. Especially for someone his age, wow! What an opportunity it is to meet one the the Lord's elect servants. You can sense the love and understanding they have for each and everyone of us. They really are examples and disciples of Christ. Anyways I just had tell everyone b/c I was very excited about it!
Monday, February 19, 2007
Web Services Assignment
1. The web service wasn't as hard to implement as I had imagined. I hadn't used my Java skills since the junior core and really wasn't looking forward to shaking the dust off my Eclipse. I decided to go with PHP, the language of choice at my work. I discovered that it was relatively simple to create and consume web services with PHP. There was a bunch of libraries out there for me to choose from. At first I didn't realize that I there were multiple libraries, but as I was reading tutorials about the PEAR soap implementation and finding they weren't working, I realized that I was using the nusoap library. Once I got past that hurdle, I was able to find several good resources, such as: Programming with NuSoap and Creating and Consuming Web Services with PHP. The most trouble I had was returning multiple variables as an output. My web service would only allow me to return only one variable and I finally figured out how to pass back an array filled with the weather information as my one output variable.
2. The wsdl of my service can be accessed at http://matt.circlepix.com/scripts/WebService/soapServer.php in a cool web services format. The wsdl can also be accessed by attaching ?wsdl to the address. Here is the sample code needed to access my weather web service:
<?php
//Get the Nusoap Library
require_once('nusoap.php');
//Create the client instance
$client = new soapclient(
'http://matt.circlepix.com/scripts/WebService/soapServer.php?wsdl', true);
//Testing variables
//$zipcode= 'provo';
//$zipcode= 'orem';
//$zipcode= '84057';
$zipcode= '84602';
//Call the soap method
$result = $client->call('getWeather', array('zipcode' => $zipcode));
//Print the result
print_r($result);
?>
3. Web services give you the ability to not rewrite code that has already been written. Whenever you want to do that same thing or anyone else for that matter, all they have to do is call that same function, with the same parameters and instantly you have what you want. Once you get the hang of creating a web service, I don't think it would be that hard to implement many of them. I believe web services separate the business logic out of the business objects and creates another layer to access. It would be difficult to integrate a web services framework into an already functioning system. Why use web services and access a service across the network, when you can create functions within your own system and include the other pages right into your code? It seems like it would be faster and the delivery would be less difficult, to use code that you've already written but use a different method to transfer it. Web services is also based upon standards that haven't been finalized. What happens if you base your whole company on RPC standard web services and then everybody adopts REST web services? I think there is a case to use web services to fill little niches in your code, such as a weather service portlet. As far as creating the whole system as a web service; I don't think that would be a good idea for any company who has already invested deeply in building their own information architecture.
4. I think Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) can essentially be found in any company in some form. We create common functions that will be used many times and put them in common files (i.e. database connection logic). We access these files at the beginning of other files and call these functions when needed. Are we not calling a service, to help us implement something? The only difference is the way we access the information. Accessing other functions the web services way, over the Internet, will significantly increase the time and bandwidth that a company uses up. One case where web services could be of use, is in a dashboard setting. If you want to create a home page filled with portlets of different kinds, a company could call different web services, such as weather, clock or news aggregators, creating a mashup of different web services. Whether or not SOA is the future; I think only time will tell.
2. The wsdl of my service can be accessed at http://matt.circlepix.com/scripts/WebService/soapServer.php in a cool web services format. The wsdl can also be accessed by attaching ?wsdl to the address. Here is the sample code needed to access my weather web service:
<?php
//Get the Nusoap Library
require_once('nusoap.php');
//Create the client instance
$client = new soapclient(
'http://matt.circlepix.com/scripts/WebService/soapServer.php?wsdl', true);
//Testing variables
//$zipcode= 'provo';
//$zipcode= 'orem';
//$zipcode= '84057';
$zipcode= '84602';
//Call the soap method
$result = $client->call('getWeather', array('zipcode' => $zipcode));
//Print the result
print_r($result);
?>
3. Web services give you the ability to not rewrite code that has already been written. Whenever you want to do that same thing or anyone else for that matter, all they have to do is call that same function, with the same parameters and instantly you have what you want. Once you get the hang of creating a web service, I don't think it would be that hard to implement many of them. I believe web services separate the business logic out of the business objects and creates another layer to access. It would be difficult to integrate a web services framework into an already functioning system. Why use web services and access a service across the network, when you can create functions within your own system and include the other pages right into your code? It seems like it would be faster and the delivery would be less difficult, to use code that you've already written but use a different method to transfer it. Web services is also based upon standards that haven't been finalized. What happens if you base your whole company on RPC standard web services and then everybody adopts REST web services? I think there is a case to use web services to fill little niches in your code, such as a weather service portlet. As far as creating the whole system as a web service; I don't think that would be a good idea for any company who has already invested deeply in building their own information architecture.
4. I think Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) can essentially be found in any company in some form. We create common functions that will be used many times and put them in common files (i.e. database connection logic). We access these files at the beginning of other files and call these functions when needed. Are we not calling a service, to help us implement something? The only difference is the way we access the information. Accessing other functions the web services way, over the Internet, will significantly increase the time and bandwidth that a company uses up. One case where web services could be of use, is in a dashboard setting. If you want to create a home page filled with portlets of different kinds, a company could call different web services, such as weather, clock or news aggregators, creating a mashup of different web services. Whether or not SOA is the future; I think only time will tell.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Flowers
I came home yesterday from a long day of work to find these gorgeous flowers! Matt is such a sweetheart! He keeps me sane throughout the busy weeks. The other pic is of my niece Emmalee. This is the face of a 8 month old who hasn't slept and is sick with a cold/teething. Poor thing! She is soooo cute! Love her to death.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Valentines Day 2007
Matt and I had a fabulous Valentines Day. Matt was sick on V-day so I decided to surprise him with a cute dinner (well, as cute of a dinner as a cheap student with no time could do) So I went and got a heart shaped pizza from 5Buck, made a healthy salad to go with our unhealthy pizza, and to top it all off I made some chocolate covered strawberries! yum! Matt was very surprised. Then on Friday it was my turn for a surprise. I got home from class at 12:00. We went to a much needed temple session, and hit this great steak place in Salt Lake. It was sooo good! We had to pick our jaws up off the floor once the bill came, but it was worth the splurge. (Matt's proposed we eat nothing but beans and soup for the next month to make up for it. Yeah right!) We were in the mood for something free after that, so we went to Brookstone for a free massage! It was heaven! Now we are at home snuggling and watching a movie! Ahh (sigh)! I love the weekends!
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Ethan Dover has arrived!
Amy Dover (Matt's sister) had her second baby on January 31st at 8:22 a.m. Yeah! He is sooo cute and chubby! Amy and baby are doing fabulous and she apparently has the pioneer adrenaline:) They have decided to name him Ethan Michael Dover. Very cute!
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