Cape Clear offers free editor tool to navigate the sea of WSDL

• By Scott Adams
• September 9, 2002

[PROGRAMMERS REPORT -Sept 10, 2002] - The Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) has sometimes been positioned as an easier way to learn the interface definition language than others that have gone before it. But as developers wrestle with Web services implementations, this may prove not to be the case. As with any software spec, tools can help.

Cape Clear Software wants to lend a hand to Web services programmers struggling with the complexities of WSDL by providing them with a free graphical WSDL editor.

The Dublin, Ireland-based Web services technology provider is billing its Cape Clear WSDL Editor as 'an intuitive graphical environment for the design of Web Services' that offers 'a range of features that simplify WSDL for both novice and experienced Web Services programmers alike,' according to company officials.

The WSDL Editor is part of Cape Clear's Web services development tool, CapeStudio, which is built on the company's CapeConnect Web services platform.

'The WSDL Editor is to Web services development what WYSIWYG HTML editors were to Web page development,' said John Maughan, business manager for Cape Clear's CapeStudio product line. He called his company's offering the first complete environment for rapid WSDL development.

WSDL is a protocol for describing the capabilities of a Web service. As such, it is proving useful to teams -- often dispersed through different organizations -- that must work together on building applications. According to Maughan, the Cape Clear editor is designed to allow developers to describe those capabilities at the beginning of a project, before they code the application itself -- a technique he characterized as a top-down approach to development. The advantages of this approach, he said, are twofold: It allows Web services consumers and producers to work in parallel, and it allows corresponding developers to use different languages.

The Cape Clear WSDL Editor includes a number of wizards designed to eliminate the complexity of WSDL, a WSDL validation feature to simplify testing and support for the rapid creation of Web services from XML Schema. In particular, said Maughan, the editor assists developers who wish to create Web services from existing XML interfaces such as SWIFT, ACORD, BAPI and RosettaNet.

Related Links:
Cape Clear Software's WSDL Editor download
http://www.capeclear.com/wsdleditor/
'WSDL and the Wild, Wild West,'
http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=6004
'Web services keep Bekins Co. moving,'
http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=6201

For other Programmer Report articles, please go to http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=6265