soap messages

i am trying to use web services within a thunderbird extention. i
followed the tutorial at
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/synd/2002/08/30/mozillasoapapi.html

but i got a very strange error.

when i get a string response i could access it using result.value() as
in the tute. however when i try the same with anything else be it a
boolean or an integer i get nothing back. doing a result.type() gives
me the respective (and correct) type but result.value() is still a
blank.