Web services use a very different mindset than the typical Windows application. Windows applications are large, all-encompassing systems that contain everything they need.
Web services, in contrast, are small fractions of a system. A complete system can be composed of web services, but a web service is not a complete system.
We've seen this pattern before. Not in Windows, nor in PC-DOS or MS-DOS, but in Unix (and now Linux).
"The Art of Unix Programming" by E.S. Raymond covers the topic well. The author describes the philosophy of small, connectable programs. Each program does one thing well, and systems are built from these programs. Anyone who has worked with the Unix (or Linux) command line knows how to connect multiple programs into a larger system.
We don't need to discover the properties of good web services. We don't need to re-invent the techniques for desiging good web services. The properties and techniques already exist, in the command-line philosophy of Unix.
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