What exactly is XML-RPC?

[eluser]Phil Sturgeon[/eluser]
A HTTP form would not only send data to the remote server but it would send the user there too. Meaning if you were trying to integrate some Flickr interaction into your app, each form submit would send the user to Flickr and away from you app!

XML-RPC, SOAP, REST etc all send and receive data on the backend without sending the user all over the place.

This is handy if you use 2 or more servers for your website. Here are work we have 6 clones running as web-servers and one server offering up data via XML-RPC, REST and MySQL.

Before you ask, an obvious advantage of XML-RPC over MySQL is that you do not need to know the database passwords.