Re: Few questions about REST

Hi Mark,

Thanks,

> You're missing the point.  POST doesn't mean "retrieve", and if you
> use it for that, nobody knows you're doing so, and you're therefore not
> using late-binding.  If you want to use POST RESTfully, your only option
> is to tunnel GET via POST as I just described  </snip>

Do you mean something like
http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/DifferentlyAbledClients ?
As far as doc-lit SOAP is concerned, this approach can make those doc-lit
SOAP requests which use POST but mean GET RESTful enough, at least
technically.

Do you agree ?

Cheers
Sergey
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Baker" <distobj@acm.org>
To: "Sergey Beryozkin" <sberyozkin@zandar.com>
Cc: <www-archive@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 3:35 PM
Subject: Re: Few questions about REST


> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 07:06:26AM -0400, Sergey Beryozkin wrote:
> > I'm asking what difference does it make to an intermediary that some
> > document was *expected*  (echoDocument example) or *not expected*
> > (clarification request in SOAP primer) to be returned in reply to a
POSTed
> > request ?
> > Your answer was that in a latter case an intermediary would not be
confused.
> > If so, then what can it do with such (clarification) data that it can't
do
> > with a document echoed back ?
>
> One thing it can do in the former case that it can't do in the latter
> case is reason about security.
>
> > > > code  early-binds a client. What is a programmimg model for
accessing
> > > > late-bound services ?
> > >
> > > Well, just look at your favourite languages' HTTP libs.
> > Sorry, I was unclear, I was more concerned about code generation. With
> > early-bound services, one just takes WSDL and generates the code
(proxies)
> > and that's it.
> > With late-bound services, how far the code generation can get ? One can
use
> > WSDL support for HTTP GET/POST. For ex, a late-bound SOAP service would
> > accept :
> >
> > GET soapgateway;stockquote:sunw
> > or
> > POST soapgateway;buystock:sunw
> > some data
> >
> > Is it correct ?
>
> See below.
>
> > > > POST soapgateway;stockquote:sunw
> > >
> > > How so?  Where's the documented expectation that POST will retrieve a
> > > quote?
> > Yes, you're right. In a perfectly RESTful environment one would use GET.
> > But I think you pointed out in an earlier mail that is not unRESTful to
use
> > POST instead of GET (sorry, I can't find in www-archive, so here's an
> > extract):
> > >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.
> > What am I missing here ?
>
> That the "some data" in your "POST soapgateway;buystock:sunw" example
> needs to include a uniform retrieval semantic (i.e. GET).
>
> > I guess one reason for using POST to get quotes from a late-bound doc
style
> > SOAP service would be to be able to pass headers.
>
> You're missing the point.  POST doesn't mean "retrieve", and if you
> use it for that, nobody knows you're doing so, and you're therefore not
> using late-binding.  If you want to use POST RESTfully, your only option
> is to tunnel GET via POST as I just described - and while *technically*
> RESTful, you're going to have an awful lot of problems deploying it in
> large scale because you're basically building a new stack that you have
> to convince people to adopt (i.e. convince firewall maintainers and
> vendors to look into your http-over-http solution).
>
> Mark.
> --
> Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 24 September 2003 05:45:43 UTC