What tools do you use to create prototypes or mockups of webservices?

Question

Ideally, and you will think I am crazy, I can code some basic logic into a bash or korn script and open that functionality up to clients hitting them. There is a lot of plumbing involved in web services and I was wondering what tools and techniques more experienced developers have been using to prototype systems where a backend webservice may not be yet available. Do such tools exist for bash and ksh? What languages are the easiest to develop mockups in. BTW I am staring at an ecplipse IDE feeling a bit disgusted by what I am looking at. I just now got JBOSS installed and running... at its heart all these services are are socket connections to the client through a port ... or am I mistaken?

BTW: I am currently reading through this. And my disgust is increasing.

Answer 1

Seriously consider some other scripting language. I've been using Python and Ruby to build quick prototypes, and been very happy with them.

If you're free to make this choice, consider using a REST architecture instead of a WSDL and SOAP solution. RPC has its place, but if you can live with the restrictions of REST, life will be much easier. Even if you can't, it's a lot quicker for prototyping to use a dynamic language.

Answer 2

I share your disgust with eclipse. A language like Python is perfect for rapid prototyping. If you combine it with one of the many web frameworks (Pylons or Django would be my recommendation for Python), the amount of work you can accomplish quickly is astounding.