Re: Few questions about REST

Mark,

> If you're referring to;
>
> "To me "doc-style SOAP" is "RESTful SOAP"."
>   -- http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2003Sep/0020.html

Apologies, I thought it was "doc-lit SOAP".

> What I meant is that if you want to be doing document style SOAP,
> you should really be using REST.  I didn't mean to suggest that
> all so-called document-style uses of SOAP are RESTful.
OK, I think we agree that some of document-style uses of SOAP are RESTful.

Can you give a simple example of an unRESTful use of doc-lit SOAP ? This
would help me to see what you mean when saying that not all uses of doc-lit
SOAP are RESTful.

> > Doc-Lit SOAP can also meet other REST constraints.
>
> Yes, I think it *could* meet all of them.
>
> But so could rpc/encoded.

How could it ? Rpc/Encoded use of SOAP can't meet (by design) any of REST
constraints, can it ? The only constraint it can try to meet is that of
state as representation, and it's only with Rpc/Literal.

> I don't believe it's particularly useful to say what *could* be, at
> least without detailing what's involved in making it so.  I would say
> that it's more useful to relate what people do today with doc/lit, to
> REST.
Can you please clarify a little bit more what you mean ? Most (or at least
not all) uses of doc-lit SOAP are RESTful. Do you mean specifying some
guidelines (that is constraining doc-lit sufficiently enough) under which
*all* (instead of 'some') uses of doc-lit SOAP can be said to be RESTful?

Thanks
Sergey

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Baker" <distobj@acm.org>
To: "Sergey Beryozkin" <sberyozkin@zandar.com>
Cc: <www-archive@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 2:01 PM
Subject: Re: Few questions about REST


> On Tue, Sep 16, 2003 at 06:32:45AM -0400, Sergey Beryozkin wrote:
> > Hello Mark,
> >
> > > > So when you said that "doc-lit SOAP is RESTful" what did you mean by
> > that ?
> > >
> > > Did I say that? <snip/>
> > Yes you did :-). And it's now in www-archive :-)
>
> If you're referring to;
>
> "To me "doc-style SOAP" is "RESTful SOAP"."
>   -- http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2003Sep/0020.html
>
> What I meant is that if you want to be doing document style SOAP,
> you should really be using REST.  I didn't mean to suggest that
> all so-called document-style uses of SOAP are RESTful.
>
> > > I think I may have said that the RESTful use of SOAP looks like
doc/lit,
> > > but where there's no method in the body.  i.e. where the document is
just
> > > state.
> > And I'm just trying to see how RESTful a doc-lit SOAP *can* be.
>
> Understood.
>
> > It seems you do agree that a doc-lit SOAP can meet a resource
identification
> > constraint.
>
> *Can*, yes.
>
> > Doc-lit SOAP can also meet a uniform interface constraint, that is all
> > identified resources support the same uniform interface, at least POST
and
> > GET.
>
> *Can*, yes.
>
> > The only question to me is it a uniform interface constraint which is
not
> > met completely when POST is used instead of GET (the same as it can be
used
> > instead of PUT and DELETE), I think it's a uniform interface one, and
this
> > is what I meant when saying that doc-lit SOAP doesn't meet the
constraint
> > strictly. Or is it some other, perhaps a derived constraint, which is
not
> > met in such a case ?
>
> Understood.
>
> Strictly, the REST uniform interface constraint only requires that the
> interface semantics be uniform.  It doesn't require that you don't do
> the equivalent of GET via POST.  Moreover, I don't believe any of REST's
> other constraints disallow it.
>
> I've run into issues like this before with REST, and when I've asked
> Roy about it, his answer was basically that it was one of those "Don't
> shoot yourself in the foot" things; that it was too obvious not to
> include as a constraint.
>
> > Doc-Lit SOAP can also meet other REST constraints.
>
> Yes, I think it *could* meet all of them.
>
> But so could rpc/encoded.
>
> I don't believe it's particularly useful to say what *could* be, at
> least without detailing what's involved in making it so.  I would say
> that it's more useful to relate what people do today with doc/lit, to
> REST.
>
> > So, can we say that a doc-lit SOAP is "mostly" RESTful, taking into
account
> > that it can meet all constraints ?
>
> No.  "doc/lit", by itself, is insufficiently constraining.  Thousands
> of people already know what it means, and if you say that it is mostly
> RESTful, they'll think that they're already close enough to REST.
>
> Ethernet and TCP "can meet all constraints" of REST, but we wouldn't
> say those are RESTful.  "Mostly RESTful" means that the system *DOES*
> intern the important constraints of REST; it doesn't mean that it *CAN*.
>
> Mark.
> --
> Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 17 September 2003 07:12:14 UTC