What are web services?
Web services are applications that run on the web and allow one web application to speak to another without the need for pressing a button. This is an over simplification, but the point is that these applications can be very useful at carrying out large and repetitive tasks that we humans would rather avoid.
How to use web services
These web services can be called from all sorts of applications, these can include databases, web applications, scripting environments including R, and Excel.
Why use web services?
Using these web services can make sense if for example you need to constantly query the ICES platform list for the latest platform codes additions, or you want to link your database to the wealth of data available at ICES without having to check for new data manually.
