IT--Chicago Style

I'd like to praise Tim Wilson for "Don't Stop the Presses!" I'm impressed with the amount of detail he included in the article--it seemed like something one would read as part of a project plan's documentation, but it was also an easy read.

As a student, I'm always looking for good articles for discussion or school assignments. I'll be visiting Network Computing's Web site more often.

Sid Lane
IT Student
University of Phoenix
E-mail address withheld by request

What a DragDon MacVittie's column "The Drag on Web Services" (May 27, 2004) really hit home. My colleagues and I work in our company's ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) department, where we build mission-critical systems that move large data sets involving imagery and other intel sensors.

Web services are OK for users who work in time frames of hours or days. However, they may not suffice for those who need near-real-time performance to react to rapidly changing conditions and threats.

My co-workers and I have been citing MacVittie in the hopes of convincing others that a pure Java XML processing architecture may not be ideal for time-sensitive applications. We get the same response he does: "You're being unreasonable--get with the program."

To help make our point, we've been looking high and low for quantitative proof of degraded performance from Java/XML systems. What we've found so far is just about 100 percent anecdotal--interesting and somewhat impressive, but pretty easy for the purists to blow off.

Has anyone else at Network Computing uncovered benchmarks or authoritative references we could use to bolster the performance point? I'd be much obliged if I could get a hold of them to build our case with the naysayers.Clark Reddick
Director, C4ISR Technologies
Company name and e-mail address withheld by request

Don MacVittie replies: Last year, Lori MacVittie reviewed and rated Web services platforms from BEA Systems, Cape Clear Software, Novell, Iona, Systinet and Sun Microsystems (see "Serving Up SOAP," April 3, 2003). If you click on the "Defining Web Services Performance" link appearing beside the article, you'll find a good overview of all the pinchpoints in the performance equation.

Tell Us How You Really Feel

Send e-mail to [email protected], fax to (516) 562-7293 or mail letters to Network Computing, 600 Community Drive, Manhasset, NY 11030. Include your name, title, company name, e-mail address and phone number. All correspondence becomes the property of Network Computing.0