How to create web page to test and use web service?

Question

I need to create a simple web service, and am leaning towards the Python package soaplib.

I would also like to create a simple web page that can consume the web service. This will serve two purposes:

• Allow for easier testing by multiple people including non-programmers.
• Allow knowledgeable / power users to call the service directly in Production on a few occasions.

Any suggestions for creating this web page? Ideally, I want to generate it automatically and not craft it by hand. I have used this type of feature with Visual Studio .NET which autocreates a basic web page as part of the process of creating a web service.

Any ideas are appreciated. I'd prefer an automated solution based on soaplib but am open to any non-soaplib or non-Python solution as well.

Answer 1

Have you considered using REST (here or here)? I was creating small app using GAE and I wanted to have programmable interface for that too. So using exactly the same URLs I've created a web service (REST) which based on client accepted mime type answered either using json (for software) or html (for users). You have wide range of possibilities and it's lot cleaner that soap-based ws.