A question for people who know Perl and Python

[Jim Whitehead]

> Suppose for the sake of argument, there were no XML-RPC (or SOAP).

OK.

> Now here's the question. What libraries would I use in both Perl
> and Python to do this integration? What would the code look like?

Well, you could use ILU (Inter-Language Unification):
ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/ilu.html

It has support for both Perl and Python:

Python:
ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/2.0b1/manual-html/manual_4.html#SEC116
Perl:
ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/2.0b1/manual-html/manual_10.html#SEC393

ILU interfaces can be mapped to multiple RPC protocols, including ONC RPC,
XNS Courier (this is a PARC research effort), IIOP, and HTTP.
ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/2.0b1/manual-html/manual_16.html#SEC512

Presumably an XML-RPC and SOAP binding could also be written.

I'll leave it to someone else to figure out what the code would look like.

> In other
> words, does XML-RPC offer a new feature to Perl and Python programmers?

Since the copyright for ILU is listed as 1991-1999, and I have been able to
find a post dated from 1995 announcing a release of ILU
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/python-list/message/5191>, I'd say XML-RPC is
not the first RPC technology available for Perl to Python interoperation.

- Jim