I've been in the XML world for about two years now - a dinosaur at today's rate. Still, I have problems with understanding conceptual and syntax issues of WSDL and XML Schema - especially the latter. In addition to being complex, XML Schema and WSDL are relatively new (or soon to be new) WC3 recommendations. So now I have two WC3 recommendations that are intimidating and complex in nature. If they're difficult for me, what about XML beginners on my team? How will they understand them? Enough said...

What this industry really needs is an inexpensive tool that will allow the creation and modification of WSDL and XML schemas. This tool should allow an organization to author these documents and write its own Web service contracts, all while hiding the inner workings of WSDL and XML Schema. Basically, it should leave the creation and modification of the document to a higher level while it performs the grunt work. Then, with most of the code generated, it should allow detailed modification. I always like a tool that implements the famous 80/20 rule. Give me 80% of the functionality and let me worry about the rest. Kamiak Corporation's Omniopera fits this description. Most of the guesswork is removed. With only a few clicks your project is well on its way.

Kamiak, a software development tools company, specializes in Web service-related technologies. Omniopera is a WSDL and XML Schema editor. The philosophy behind it is that you can use WSDL as IDL to define a Web service interface up front, prior to Web service development. It's a great front end for any of the major Web service development tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, Borland Delphi 6, or Apache Axis.

Without Omniopera (or similar IDE), developers start with a development tool and create code to define their Web service. The development tool creates the WSDL to define the Web service interface. Machine-generated WSDL can result in a poorly defined interface, causing problems when people try to develop clients that work with the Web service. Mark Young, vice president at Kamiak, adds: "One of the things we've been emphasizing lately is that our users can start with industry-standard schemas (like those from ebXML) and develop their WSDL accordingly. We think it is much harder to do this without a tool like Omniopera, especially if a developer starts coding first." Omniopera is a solid tool in this area with useful extras.

Downloading was a snap - get a trial copy at www.omniopera.com. The setup file was small (4.8MG) and took only a few minutes to come across the wire. No surprises with the installation - just agree to a 10-day trial license and you're off and running. I'd like to thank Kamiak for not asking the name of my firstborn to download Omniopera. Rather than a long complicated questionnaire, Kamiak only wanted my e-mail address. Nice touch. The help system is also very clear and detailed.

At the heart of Omniopera is its graphical drag-and-drop interface (see Figure 1). This GUI allows trouble-free XML schema and WSDL editing, both performed in a treeview. The hierarchical structure of an XML document makes it a natural for a treeview.

Once you're equipped with Omniopera, look forward to taking tighter control of your Web services. I definitely found myself creating better contracts. In addition, with tighter data typing, I expect to spend less time explaining my Web services to other developers. Although I develop Web services on J2EE, I don't expect that I'd expend a whole lot of effort adapting my services to work with other platforms - like .NET.

All in all, Omniopera allows you to spend less time figuring out the precise source code incantation required to expose the sophisticated data structures that your Web service requires; your framework will automatically create this code for you. This all adds up to a tremendous time saving. Now that I can use!

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Kamiak
Box 151
Sheridan, WY 82801
Phone: 603 673-5163
E-Mail: info@kamiak.com
Web: www.kamiak.com

Test Environment
OS: Microsoft NT4
Processor: Pentium III, 550MHz
Memory: 64MB

Specifications
Platforms: Platform independent
Pricing: Variously priced at $95 and $225
(see Web site for details)