- From: Francis McCabe <fgm@fla.fujitsu.com>
- Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 13:58:25 -0700
- To: Walden Mathews <waldenm@optonline.net>
- Cc: www-ws-arch@w3.org
On Thursday, May 15, 2003, at 10:00 AM, Walden Mathews wrote: > >>> "REST is really a semantic issue" >> >> This is shorthand for: the REST constraints represent constraints on >> the semantics of message delivery. > > The context was a little choppy, granted, but my objections > remain. You either mean > > (1) that REST imposes meaning on message exchange, or > (2) every REST constraint is about the elevation of meaning > [(3) I don't know what you mean, and my head hurts] > > My counter to (1) is that constraint lending meaning (at least > in someone's eyes) is a universal concept, not specific to REST True, but REST imposes particular constraints; not constraints in some vague sense. Sure, constraints lend meaning is a fairly universal human approach to making sense of the world. The particular constraints that REST imposes include enclosing a representation of state, and the use of particular verbs with particular meaning. The stateless server constraint has a lot to do with interpreting the message: the server is not *supposed* to take into account any state information not present in the message. That is squarely a level 2 constraint and it has a lot to do with conveying meaning. Frank
Received on Thursday, 15 May 2003 16:58:44 UTC