Loosely Coupled: The Missing Pieces of Web Services

Loosely Coupled addresses the most difficult aspects of web services including security, reliable messaging, and long-lived loosely coupled asynchronous transactions. These are the concepts of web services that the experts agree will ultimately be the most important, but for which the standards, protocols, and tools don't yet exist. Doug Kaye explains these missing-piece challenges, describes the ultimate solutions, and helps the reader develop a web-services strategy for his or her organization.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

He's got it right!, 2006-01-28
As a number of reviewers have indicated, this is not a recipe book for implementing Web Services/SOAs. Rather, Kaye provides a terrific overview of the proper way to approach Web Services/SOAs. He correctly eschews the use of object-to-object invocations through Web Services and instead evangelizes a true *service* model where services with well-defined interfaces are accessed - not object methods invoked.

Once he's made that important point, he identifies shortcomings or "missing pieces" in the current offerings (e.g. security, workflow) and offers insightful solutions or potential solutions.

A "must-read" for technology leaders and business leaders interested in SOAs implemented through Web Services.


8 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

A Random Walk Through Web Services, 2005-08-28
This book has been a tremendous disappointment, specially since most reviewers gave it 4 or 5 stars and I usually trust reviewers' opinions. Disclaimer: I'm a programmer, not a manager or a burocrat.

First of all it really bothered me to find so many mispellings. A simple spell check would not have hurt. Other spelled ohter, etc. If you didn't use a spell checker, what else did you forget with such a loose quality control policy?

Secondly the title of this book was clearly brainstormed AFTER it was written and is misleading. This book was written as "a random walk through web services", so they took the concept of loose coupling and stuck the phrase "loosely coupled" in randon paragraphs throughout the text. Of course web services are meant to be loosely coupled and it is practically impossible to write a tightly coupled web service. Loose coupling is the reason web services exist...so people don't need access to your source code or access to your company's internal workings to be able to use your services. Doug Kaye obviously didn't get it : web services were CREATED to allow loosely coupled distributed systems, but he writes as if loose coupling is a consequence of you reading his book... Which started bothering me already in the first few chapters.

Another appropriate title would have been "The Web Services Fake Book" - as in the Jazz fake books. With jazz fake books you sorta quickly learn an easy version of the song and then you can get by a gig by faking it, as if you knew all the songs, so you can make a quick buck not refusing a gig for songs you didn't know. With this book you will learn all the hot lingo and you will SOUND like a web services pro after reading it. But it's mostly theoretical and he forgets to use the word "supposedly" throughout the text.

Further criticizing the misleading title "the missing pieces of web services" - "the missing pieces" covered in this book make up a 3 PAGE CHAPTER!(Chapter 4) The index shows the chapter has 5 pages, 47 to 52, but the first and last are blank...LOL Which proves the title was created AFTER the book was written, obviously they just stuck a few short paragraphs about missing pieces there and bob's your uncle.

The author's pretension reaches a climax when he proposes web services be renamed "internet services" because, according to him, web services are not at all web-related. He seems to have forgotten that HTTP was created FOR the web, not the web for HTTP, and that web services are a revolution exactly because they use the existing HTTP infrastructure, which was created FOR THE WEB.

My personal conclusion: this book is 80% alchemy, 20% science and I could not get past page 192 feeling that I was wasting my time with it.

You WILL learn all the acronyms and sharp talk, but you will probably finish this book asking all the same questions(i didn't finish it, but I'm still asking myself all the same questions, specially "why did i buy this book?"), because as with every good burocrat this guy managed to fill 320 pages and not add very much to the discussion.


5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent reading for everyone interested in concepts, 2005-08-13
They say, that this book is mainly for executives and architects. That is not true. Even developers should read it, although it doesn't provide any API descriptions or howtos. The book describes how current systems and architectures have evolved to the Service Oriented form, as well as what does it actually mean for the real enterprise applications and environments. It is obvious, that the author knows what he is talking about, since he gives the reader a deep insight into the whole Web Services concept, raising issues and problems the world of WS is facing now (orchestration, asynchronous web services etc). Doug Kaye is well known guy in the industry and he is able to express concepts and ideas as only a few of the others do. Web services/SOA is currently on the peak of hype, a lot of has been written about this topic. Some writings are usefull, some are just empty talking without the point. This is not the case. Read it, if you want to get better understanding what is actually the content of all that hype.


5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Clearly presented and cuts to the chase., 2005-04-09
I have been using this book as a reference and teaching text since Sept 2003 and have stuck with it because I have found that it offers more comprehensive and clearer explanations of the key web service concepts than do other comparable texts - though some other books eg by Marks and Werrell or by Douglas Barry are also well written and have their strengths, they are somewhat less insightful on important aspects. The coverage of 'missing pieces' such as WS security, is [inevitably] becoming dated but hopefully given the modular nature of the text and the author's willingness to publish electronically, it will soon be reissued with some critical updates.


7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

An excellent overview for technical decision-makers, 2004-12-19
This book is extremely helpful for decision-makers who are considering proposals for implementing web services. It is not designed for the architect or programmers but provides an outstanding overview of the key issues. I particularly appreciated the chapter on how to decide what type of project to undertake and assess its complexity and proposed schedule.

I really hope that Mr. Kaye comes out soon with a book with very practical advice on how to use web services to integrate specific COTS such as Oracle Financials, etc. with other applications. The idea of web services sounds great, but as a veteran of two projects now that are using some form of web services, it is not as easy as one would like. Mr. Kaye clearly defines some of the issues. Now lets have a follow-up that helps us with the next phase.

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