SOAP::Lite for Perl

Go get 0.65_4

Thanks to the many issues that people submitted since the last release in S::L's bug database, I had more than enough work to do. I admit, more bugs remain, but there are improvements in 0.65_4 that I would hate to keep from people, including some much needed enhancements to stubmaker.pl. Go get it on CPAN or Sourceforge.

Moved to TypePad...

One of the advantages of being the Product Manager of TypePad is the fact that I get a free account to host my pet projects. Although I didn't move SOAP::Lite over to TypePad just for fun. One of the biggest advantages of this move is the excellent comment spam filtering that TypePad offers. Because TypePad is a hosted weblogging service, it can detect, block and delete comment spam globally for all weblogs on the service. Furthermore, because I am in TypePad almost every day now, it may compel me to keep the community up to date more.

And hey, before I forget: be sure to check out the latest HOWTOs about SOAP::Lite 0.65! I am starting a new series which I hope will start to educate the developer community a bit on some of the cool new features.

stubmaker.pl gets some updates

I just finished checking in some enhancements to stubmaker.pl. Nothing fancy, just improving the help documentation and added some command line switches so that you can control what directory generated files get outputed to. The new version of stubmaker will be released with the next beta of SOAP::Lite.

An improved HTTP Daemon?

I spent some time this weekend going through SOAP::Lite bugs, and I am so impressed with the S::L developer community! Almost all of the bugs contain patches of some kind. I can't tell you how wonderful it is (as the developer on a project like this) to have your users essentially doing your job for you! So thank you.

But that is not the point of this post. In one of the bugs a user, Michael Douglass to be exact, submitted what appears to be an improved implementation of SOAP::Transport::HTTP::Daemon. I am not ready to include the code in 0.65, but thought I would share it with the community and see if I can't get it to endorse it somehow so that I might include it in a later release.

I will test it eventually, but I am focusing on 0.65_3 right now and don't have the bandwidth for new features like this. Furthermore, I tend to avoid writing an HTTP daemon in Perl when I can use Apache for free. I would be curious to know why so many SOAP::Lite developers like using their own home grown HTTP daemon when there are so many good free ones available. Anyone care to shed some light on this?

Unlocking 0.65: Direct access to the HTTP::Request and HTTP::Response objects

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I said I would take the reigns of the SOAP::Lite project. SOAP::Lite is an extensive module that feels like it grew quite organically. It is infused with some of the most creative Perl I have ever seen, and it took me two years of sporadic and at times intense development to even begin to unravel and make sense of the code. As a result, most SOAP::Lite releases have focused on areas of code which I was already intimately familiar, i.e. the MIME section, or with relatively minor bug fixes. But with 0.65 I pledged to tackle some of the issues that have long frustrated me. Over the next couple of weeks I will introduce a series of articles that explores some of the enhancements I have made to SOAP::Lite 0.65.

Version numbers, they are a change'n

With the release of SOAP::Lite 0.65, we will be modifying our version number scheme to be synchronized with the CVS version number of SOAP/Lite.pm. This will make our release process a little easier, will make development versions of SOAP::Lite easier to package up and will eliminate some annoying warning messages that eminate when you check out code directly from CVS. Anyway, I wanted to let everyone know so that when the version number jumps from 0.65 to 1.36 or something like that, no one will flip out.

SOAP::Lite 0.65 Beta 3 Released

It seems like a million years ago that I really started to crank on SOAP::Lite development. It was a great summer. But then I had to go back to work, and as I suspected the time I had to work on SOAP::Lite evaporated. I have continued to work on it from time to time, but my release schedule has been horribly neglected and is hopelessly out of date. Tsk. Tsk.

But no more. I hope. Today I released SOAP::Lite 0.65 Beta 3 to sourceforge and CPAN. This is a big release as it introduces far improved support for WSDL.

The question is: is this release good enough from prime time? Good enough for production? In my humble opinion: yes. WSDL support is still spotty, but it is far better than it was. So by all means, install it and let me know if you encounter any problems.

SOAP::Lite 0.65 Beta 2 Released!

Wow, SOAP::Lite went from not having a release in one year, to having 2 in 2 weeks. This is a dangerous precedent to set, let me tell ya. But without further ado, let me announce the release of SOAP::Lite version 0.65 Beta 2. This release contains almost as many changes as the first, including some of the following:

• Developers can now specify their own User Agent class for their SOAP clients.
• DIME hooks have been added, assuring DIME support for this release - however, DIME is still not functional until needed patches are made to DIME::Tools.
• Developers now have access to stub code generated from WSDLs. This code can be output to a file to help in debugging, and service generation.
• One is now able to construct envelopes with null SOAP Bodies.
• One now has direct access to the LWP::UserAgent class used by SOAP::Schema to fetch WSDLs. This is helpful if your WSDL requires authentication.
• Documentation refinements including refactored README, ReleaseNotes.txt, and more.

View a complete change log of the release.

SOAP::Lite is growing and changing substantiall. We need your help in testing this very critical release, So please, download, install, and test out SOAP::Lite now.


Update: A bug was discovered in one of the unit tests causing some tests to fail if you don't have MIME::Tools installed. These failures are innocuous, but a new release (0.65-beta2.1) has been packaged up and is available for download.

SOAP::Lite 0.65 Beta 1 Released!

I stayed up late last night to get all of the core unit tests to pass marking the first milestone for the next release of SOAP::Lite. I am continuing to make changes, fix bugs, and add new code, so we are not code/feature complete yet, but we should be soon. My biggest priority right now is to get this code into the hands of the developers so they can assist in identifying any lingering issues. I encourage everyone to download this release, check out its documentation and then install and try it out for themselves. Please submit any bugs you find to our bug tracking system.

Announcing the SOAP::Lite Logo Contest

A lot of changes are coming soon to SOAP::Lite. The software has been dormant for a while, but that will soon change. In the coming weeks:

• a new version of SOAP::Lite will be released
• complete revamped and rewritten documentation will be released

It is also time I think to spruce up the SOAP::Lite website. A new design is in progress, and I would love to have a logo for the project as well. Therefore I would like to announce the "Official SOAP::Lite Logo Contest."

I am just one guy, with no sponsors or much cash, so I can't promise something huge - but I can promise a nice gift certificate to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your bookstore of choice.

So start up GIMP, Photoshop, or your graphics editor of choice, and see what we can't come up with!