[CAnet - news] Good example of web services for Seniors in Canada

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[Here is a great example of how web services using RESTful can link
information processes that are useful for Canadian Seniors.  As the article
points out, instead of simply providing an HTML interface for human readers,
the site's maintainers decided to make information available via XML as well
so that other jurisdictions (such as provinces and cities) could include the
same seniors' information in their web sites as computer to computer
linkage. And this represents the fundamental architectural revolution of web
services - the linking of information (and other processes) as computer to
computer communication, rather than linking HTML interface for humans. Some
excerpts from the article. Thanks to Darcy Quesnel for this pointer-- BSA]

http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/archives/2005/03/09/public-rest-appl
ication-seniors-canada-online/

Big, public REST application: Seniors Canada Online

Yesterday I found out about a major government XML+HTTP (i.e. REST) web
application that has been open to the general public since October 2004 but
was never formally announced - I'm posting about it here with permission
from the federal department that's hosting it.

The Seniors Canada Online web site is designed to provide amalgamated
information for senior citizens from all levels of government - currently it
contains seniors' information from the Canadian federal government, the
provincial and territorial governments, and the city of Brockville, but more
municipalities and NGOs will likely be joining in the future. Instead of
simply providing an HTML interface for human readers, however, the site's
maintainers decided to make information available via XML as well so that
other jurisdictions (such as provinces and cities) could include the same
seniors' information in their web sites. In fact, since it's wide open,
anyone can experiment with using the XML data.

According to the developer, the implementation was trivial - the REST
application shares its database and application logic with the HTML web
site, so the XML part is just a thin view written on top of all that,
running in parallel with the HTML view.

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These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect
those  of the CANARIE board or management.



Bill St. Arnaud
Senior Director Network Projects
CANARIE
[email protected]
+1 613 944-5603

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