There is More to REST Than HTTP + POX

It's great to see more people in the geospatial community thinking outside the SOAP box. Still, there's more to REST than HTTP and plain old XML (POX) or JSON. Fuzzy's service architecture, typified by requests like:

GET v1/ws_geo_getextent.php?geotable=places&srid=4269&parameters=id=10 HTTP/1.1
Host: webservices.example.com

is the venerable REST-RPC hybrid explained in Chapter 1 of RESTful Web Services. This architecture is okay for read-only services, but doesn't easily accommodate creation, update, or deletion of resources (it doesn't actually expose any resources at all), and sets you up for troubles like those of SimpleDB. Even if you dodge the pitfall of:

GET v1/ws_geo_deleterow?geotable=places&parameters=id=10 HTTP/1.1
Host: webservices.example.com

D'oh!

by properly using HTTP DELETE, you've lost uniform interface to your resources and no longer have a RESTful architecture.

Seems like a cool project. A little restraint in hyping REST is all I'm suggesting.

Comments

Re: There is More to REST Than HTTP + POX

Author: Dave Smith

Downright scary for transactional purposes...

Re: There is More to REST Than HTTP + POX

Author: Sean

Technical merits of the web services aside: I'd just rather that "REST" didn't become the new "SOA", a term taken over by marketing and stripped of all meaning.