Dreaming in SOAP

I found myself defending SOAP in a meeting again today. The younger developers looked at me like I’d suggested we write our next microservice in COBOL.

But here’s the thing: in the ever-evolving landscape of web services, SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) still holds a special place in my developer heart.

Why I Can’t Quit SOAP

Look, I get it. REST is cleaner. GraphQL is sexier. But after 15 years of building enterprise systems, I’ve developed an odd appreciation for SOAP’s rigid structure. Each message, wrapped in its XML envelope, feels like a well-packaged gift. Here’s a snippet from a weather service I maintained for years:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope">
  <soap:Header>
    <api-key>abc123</api-key>
  </soap:Header>
  <soap:Body>
    <GetWeather>
      <city>Seattle</city>
      <country>US</country>
    </GetWeather>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

The 3 AM Debugging Session

I’ll never forget the night I had to debug a critical banking integration. While our fancy REST services were giving us cryptic errors, the SOAP service’s WSDL (Web Services Description Language) contract pointed us exactly where we needed to look. The response was verbose but crystal clear:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope">
  <soap:Body>
    <GetWeatherResponse>
      <temperature>12.5</temperature>
      <conditions>Cloudy</conditions>
      <humidity>78</humidity>
    </GetWeatherResponse>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Embracing the “Outdated”

My colleagues tease me about being the “SOAP whisperer” on our team. Yes, the messages are verbose. Sure, the XML can look like alphabet soup to the uninitiated. But in a world where microservices can fail in spectacular and unexpected ways, I find comfort in SOAP’s predictability.

When the new team lead suggested replacing our core SOAP services with REST endpoints “because it’s modern,” I couldn’t help but smile. Some of our most reliable systems, running 24/7 for nearly a decade, are built on those “legacy” SOAP services.

Maybe I’m getting old, or maybe I’ve just learned to appreciate technology that prioritizes clarity over coolness. Either way, I’m done apologizing for my appreciation of SOAP. Not every service needs to be RESTful to be beautiful, and sometimes the best dreams are built on XML schemas and WSDL files.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some envelope tags to write.