What is a “web service” in plain English?

Question

I\'ve been reading about \"web services\" here on SO, on Wikipedia, Google, etc., and I don\'t quite understand what they are. What is the plain English definition/descript

Answer 1

A web service differs from a web site in that a web service provides information consumable by software rather than humans. As a result, we are usually talking about exposed JSON, XML, or SOAP services.

Web services are a key component in "mashups". Mashups are when information from many websites is automatically aggregated into a new and useful service. For example, there are sites that aggregate Google Maps with information about police reports to give you a graphical representation of crime in your area. Another type of mashup would be to take real stock data provided by another site and combine it with a fake trading application to create a stock-market "game".

Web services are also used to provide news (see RSS), latest items added to a site, information on new products, podcasts, and other great features that make the modern web turn.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Well,

As @Vincent Ramdhanie has said that a web service is not meant to be seen / consumed by end user but another program. So technically logic in your program will be:

In case of acting as a normal program

user on website -> HTML/JS/JQuery etc -> give me a random number ->ur program

Now

ur program -> generate random number -> generate HTML and encapsulate o/p -> go back to user

but in case of web service the flow changes a little:

user -> my application -> XML/JSON/some other format -> give me a random number ->ur program Now

ur program -> generate random number -> generate XML/JSON/some other format -> my application -> generate HTML and encapsulate o/p -> go back to user

Hope this helps :)

Answer 3

A web service, as used by software developers, generally refers to an operation that is performed on a remote server and invoked using the XML/SOAP specification. As with all definitions, there are nuances to it, but that's the most common use of the term.