Re: Regular Web of Things call on scripting API

On Tue, Nov 1, 2016 at 12:19 PM, Benjamin Francis <bfrancis@mozilla.com>
wrote:

> On 1 November 2016 at 14:31, Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> wrote:
>
>> How would your proposal decouple application scripts from the platform’s
>> choice of protocols, given that REST and HTTP isn’t always appropriate?
>>
>
> My view is that the Web of Things should be built on URLs and HTTP rather
> than trying to be entirely application protocol-agnostic (which I don't
> think is realistic or even technically possible). That's what makes it the
> Web of Things as opposed to the Internet of Things.
>
> By using a single application protocol and data model the Web of Things
> can be a unifying layer on top of the Internet of Things, devices can use
> whatever network protocol meets their needs (and even use another IoT
> application protocol behind HTTP which is bridged to the web via a gateway
> or cloud service).
>

Agree 100%. The regular Web doesn't concern itself with what is behind
URLs, and neither should the WoT. Your choice of IoT protocol behind the
scenes is very much like your choice of database for your regular Web
server - it's your choice, you do the bridging, and if you need to change
your mind at some point then your clients are none the wiser. Frameworks
may appear to help you with more common lower level stuff, but it isn't
anything with which this standards effort needs to concern itself.



> Why can't I just...
>
> POST http://mythingserver.com/things/
>
> ...with a Thing Description of the new Thing including that it's a
> temperature sensor with a temperature value. Then...
>
> GET http://mythingserver.com/things/temperatureSensor/
> properties/temperature
>
> ... with the programming language of my choice.
>
> There are many existing solutions for proxies or traversing firewalls with
> HTTP.
>
> I don't understand why any of this requires standardising a
> language-agnostic scripting API via the W3C vs. just allowing anyone to
> write their own helper library that talks to a standardised REST API?
>

Once you have a URL syntax for determining properties and their values, you
can then build rule systems (etc) on top without any constraint for which
language you're using to do that.

thanks for making a lot of sense
J