Re: PROV-ISSUE-432 (post-or-get): Is http get the correct form for the provenance service [Accessing and Querying Provenance]

Jim, can you say why you think accessing provenance has side effects? I don't think it does. When appropriate, GET is preferred because the result can be cached.

(Also, technically, GET operations are required to be "safe", not side effect free.)
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Jim McCusker <mccusj@rpi.edu> wrote:

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Provenance Working Group Issue Tracker <sysbot+tracker@w3.org> wrote:

PROV-ISSUE-432 (post-or-get): Is http get the correct form for the provenance service [Accessing and Querying Provenance]

http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/432

Raised by: Paul Groth
On product: Accessing and Querying Provenance

According to REST principles one should not create side-effects when using GET. The question is does this apply to provenance-service.

Also, should POST be supported as well as GET in the provenance service.


To start: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/630453/put-vs-post-in-rest


GETs should never have side effects. GET is only used for access. POST is to perform an operation (I prefer them to be idempotent, as in SADI, but that's not a REST requirement). Updates and deletes should be handled via UPDATE and DELETE respectively. Our users will be far less confused if we keep these separate.


Using GET only for access and PUT'ting, UPDATE'ing, and DELETE'ing (with the option of auth, of course) against that URL is also much kinder to linked data.


Jim

-- 
Jim McCusker
Programmer Analyst
Krauthammer Lab, Pathology Informatics
Yale School of Medicine
james.mccusker@yale.edu | (203) 785-6330
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Tetherless World Constellation
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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