Grokking the Web

I'm going to have to take a short break from this list, while I attend
to things at work.  So I'll respond to this, then mostly drop off
(unless I'm needed - just email me directly).

On Sat, Sep 28, 2002 at 12:31:24PM -0400, Heather Kreger wrote:
[snip]
> If we did these things, does it make it then so that Web services does not
> preclude RESTfull
> designs and implementations?  (if no, what else is required?)

While I spent most of my time in the XML Protocol WG ensuring that SOAP
"did not preclude" RESTful uses, I'm not really interested in doing that
in the context of this WG.  I'm here to suggest that REST is a suitable
architectural style for Web services.

As I've said before, I've still yet to see a Web services use case that
doesn't have a solution (and a *good* one, not a hack) that respects all
of REST's constraints.  I think that says something important.

> Apparently we are but
> simple children in
> 'the one true way' and need to be spoon fed answers.

Not at all.  You're all very smart people.  You just haven't studied the
Web close enough to know how it works.  Heaven knows, I'm no genius.  I
was just in the right place at the right time in 1996, when I hooked up
with some Web illuminati at UCI/W3C (Fielding, Khare, Whitehead).  If I
hadn't done that, I would probably be in your shoes right now, because I
too thought that the Web was just for humans, and didn't take it
seriously as a platform for distributed computing.  Nothing that serves
porn should be taken seriously, right? 8-)

So the good news is that, as I can attest to, it doesn't take a genius
to "get the Web".  The bad news is that it takes time, and an open mind
(more the latter than the former).  But once you're there, it's a
wonderful feeling, and you get to really appreciate the extent of the
gift that Tim gave us.

> I'm sure I'm way out on a limb here.

I appreciate your candor, thanks.

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

Received on Tuesday, 1 October 2002 11:33:16 UTC