XML-RPC, a simple yet powerful system built on XML and HTTP, lets developers connect programs running on different computers with a minimum of fuss. Java programs can talk to Perl scripts, which can talk to ASP applications, and so on. With XML-RPC, developers can provide access to functionality without having to worry about the system on the other end, so it's easy to create web services.
XML-RPC takes web technology in a new direction, giving you a new way to create simple, but powerful, connections between different kinds of programs. After wasting more hours than I care to admit developing and documenting network formats used to exchange relatively simple kinds of information between programs, I was very happy to discover XML-RPC. It would have made all that work much easier.
Whether you integrate systems within a single network or provide services and information to the public as a whole, XML-RPC provides critical layers of abstraction that make it simple to connect different kinds of computing systems without needing to create new standards for every application. Because XML-RPC is built on commonly available HTTP and XML technologies, the costs of implementing it are low. Because XML-RPC focuses sharply on solving a particular kind of problem -- making procedure calls across a network -- it is very easy to learn and implement across a wide variety of systems.
