the corner office

I see that Apache Axis2 has hit 1.0 status. Axis2 is a new SOAP implementation, meant to replace the venerable Axis, (which was the old Apache SOAP, which was (I think) the prehistoric SOAP4J before that). When I was doing some homework on SOAP APIs a while back, the Axis2 stuff still looked a bit flaky and under-documented. Axis2 does sound more promising, though, particularly the fact that they seem to have done away with the infernal JAX specs and are going for a simpler, saner XML-over-the-wire API.

Having spent some time in the Axis 1.3 code trying to figure how certain things work (or more to the point, why certain things weren't working), I can understand why the Apache folks decided to wipe the slate clean and start over with Axis2. Apart from buckling under the weight of its own API, the old Axis had a more-than-mild case of bitrot. It's a known entity, at least, and widely documented, but it sounds like Axis2 is catching up fast. I think I'll be giving it another look.

(Update: the BileBlog says don't bother)