What the is the "best" SOAP choice these days if php5 is can not be used?
Our firm is about to invest some effort in putting up some example SOAP endpoints to show our user community how to use a complex XML schema that will be carried about using the document model mode (project length ~3 months) The SOAP part (which is fairly simple) will, in time be integrated with our phpBB forum so that deployments can argue over what constitutes the best practices. All the code developed in this will be freely given away as part of the support and examples provide to help people use the schema set. So, in general we want to use simple methods that everyone can understand and not get overly wrapped around OOP controversies.
We also use phpBB as our primary discussion forum, and as you may be aware, this forum currently is NOT compatible with php5 (we run php 4.13 on WinNT Server 2003 machines). The next generation will use php5.
Here is my dilemma: I would have preferred to use php5 (with its built in SOAP lib), but now think the best choice may be php4 and NuSOAP and then reevaluate moving to php5 at the end of the project. And I should mention that we are in other respects a Microsoft shop, although moving to .NET is full of "discoveries" you can do without if you build complex XML.
Without starting a flame contest over preferences, what are people thoughts on the future of NuSOAP and starting new work with it today? Is php5 still considered rather buggy (at least where the SOAP routines are concerned), or has the world tilted to favor php5? If php5 is the future, are we beter off just building with it and dealing with current errors? Other reasonable, stable alternatives such as PEAR? By the time I finish this project, I am sure I will know the answer for myself, but today I rely on the advice of the group to guide this choice.
