What is a “web service” in plain English?

Question

I\'ve been reading about \"web services\" here on SO, on Wikipedia, Google, etc., and I don\'t quite understand what they are. What is the plain English definition/descript

Answer 1

Well,

As @Vincent Ramdhanie has said that a web service is not meant to be seen / consumed by end user but another program. So technically logic in your program will be:

In case of acting as a normal program

user on website -> HTML/JS/JQuery etc -> give me a random number ->ur program

Now

ur program -> generate random number -> generate HTML and encapsulate o/p -> go back to user

but in case of web service the flow changes a little:

user -> my application -> XML/JSON/some other format -> give me a random number ->ur program Now

ur program -> generate random number -> generate XML/JSON/some other format -> my application -> generate HTML and encapsulate o/p -> go back to user

Hope this helps :)