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XML Nation » Mark Baker comments on my post...

Mark Baker comments on my post...

Mark Baker commented on my post about Web services and REST over on his blog. He says:

To the second point, there actually is a critical reason (in addition to the "hide the XML" problem) why SOA/WS cannot be as simple as REST; that the architectural constraints which induce the bulk of the simplicity in REST (uniform interface, self-description), are eschewed by SOA/WS. Isn't it ironic that their raison d'etre - service specific interfaces - is the reason they will fail to see widespread deployment? I think so. 8-)

Two comments...

First, I think the recent discussion about delivering RSS through NNTP or other protocols beyond HTTP point out the limitations of that protocol and, perhaps REST as a model for all delivery of information.

Second, I actually think that WS do have a simple set of operations: input/output, input, output and output/input. That's it.

Posted Sep 30 2004, 12:30 PM by tim-ewald

Comments

Mark Baker wrote REST != HTTP
on 09-30-2004 12:10 PM
Tim, REST doesn't constrain you to using HTTP, it only constrains you to using uniform operations. *Many* other protocols can be used in this fashion, including NNTP (which, FWIW, is where HTTP got its "POST" operation), FTP (notice how clicking an ftp URI behaves the same as an http URI?), SMTP. Some are a bit troublesome to use uniformly, such as POP3 since it's quite stateful. And some, such as
telnet, well, just forget about it. 8-) Said another way, REST constrains you to use all resources (no matter which URI scheme they may be identified with) as if an HTTP proxy were in front them.

Unfortunately, "input" and "output", as commonly understood (i.e. WSDL) aren't operations, e.g. "input" and "getStockQuote". FWIW, the "ProcessMessage" style, which isn't REST, also uses this architectural constraint. See the post and discussion here;

http://jim.webber.name/2004/09/20/16be8a55-dc6b-4854-a962-8f6b97d66525.aspx

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