SOAP

[Gervase Markham]

Joel Peshkin wrote:
>    I have been looking at SOAP and it looks like the right way to let 
> javascript functions access databases so that mid-air checks can happen 
> earliers, user matching can be done while editing (replacing wildcards 
> and drop-down user pickers) and a whole lot more.

A few thoughts:

What's the particular advantage of SOAP (which, as I understand it, is 
an XML wrapper format for wrapping more XML), given that browsers mostly 
don't support it natively? I think Moz might, a little bit, but IE 
doesn't as far as I know.

Such checking could only be done in really modern browsers, anyway - 
older ones don't support JS fetching arbitrary documents without a page 
reload of some sort.

Is it worth all the effort and added complexity that it would require? 
What is your "whole lot more"? :-)

Mid-air checks can't be done earlier with 100% accuracy, of course, 
because if you check at some point before submission, you have to check 
again on submission anyway.

Gerv