Re: Why aren't most devices virtual web services?

On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 10:13 PM, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:

> For cameras, if we wanted to allow people to use Web-provided streams as
> their outgoing streams, I think we could do that significantly more easily
> just by using a URL scheme to represent online streams. No need for an
> entire REST API to be defined for that.
>

This sounds fine provided that local cameras/mics are also addressed by some
sort of URL, so that the same code works with both local and remote devices.
I think this is the important point Mark was making.  The style of the API
is not important; it just has to look the same regardless of where the
actual device lives, and should reuse HTTP security mechanisms rather than
require something new.