Re: REST vs. OMA (not SOAP)

On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 11:47:20AM -0600, Champion, Mike wrote:
> OK, and if I want to accept (change the status) of an order, I
> POST a message that contains an "indication" (method, header,
> noun, verb, whatever) of the action that should be taken and
> the new status of the resource, right?  That's how real people do
> things on the Web today, don't they?   Is this un-RESTful?

Just to add my 2c to this ...

I don't like Paul's explanation of "diff", but for different reasons
than Bob gave.

POST is just a way to hand data to something.  Without additional
information, a successful response means absolutely nothing except that
the data was processed in some manner.  So POSTing a "diff" won't
necessarily get you what you want, unless you have an expectation that
the thing you're POSTing to will process the diff as you expect.  And in
that case, you might as well use PUT, since (so it appears) you're
expecting to know the exact state of the resource after the POST.

Anyhow, I've written something about how POST works, and how
expectations of behaviour can be negotiated, so I might as well defer to
it;

http://www.markbaker.ca/2002/05/GettingStuffDoneOnTheWeb/

MB
-- 
Mark Baker, CTO, Idokorro Mobile (formerly Planetfred)
Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.               distobj@acm.org
http://www.markbaker.ca        http://www.idokorro.com

Received on Thursday, 18 July 2002 22:13:05 UTC