Re: One more post on REST and then I am done: (was: WS-Addressing and R085)

Hey.  In the hopes that your schedule permits responding to a
focused response ... 8-)

On Tue, Apr 15, 2003 at 09:58:54AM +0200, Clemens F. Vasters wrote:
> Hi Mark,
> 
> >Consider a description of a book;
> >
> ><book>
> > <title>Some book</title>
> ><author>Some author</author>
> ></book>
> > That is not a message. 
> 
> Right, but that here is:
> 
> <insertbooks>
>   <book>
>     <title>Some book</title>
>    <author>Some author</author>
>   </book>
> </insertbooks>

Right, that's a message.  But then you said;

> Application protocol? Thanks, no need: overhead.

But you *ARE* using an application protocol in that example; you wrap
your book description with an "insertbooks" element which is presumably
an instruction to the recipient to insert the contained books into some
list of books, or something like that.  The definition of the semantics
of that method reified in a syntax (XML in this case) *is* an
application protocol.  I could even break it out and define the "Book
Info Transfer Protocol".  It might have methods like "insertbooks",
"getBookInfo", "updateBookInfo", etc..

Follow?  POST and PUT are application semantics as much as "insertbooks"
is.  Once you understand this crucial point and have mulled it over,
what the Web actually is becomes a lot clearer ... at least in my
experience (since it was understanding this point after talking with
Roy in '98 that lead me to commit my career to the Web).

I could respond to your other questions and points, but until we're
in synch regarding application protocols, we might as well be speaking
different languages.

MB
-- 
Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca
Web architecture consulting, technical reports, evaluation & analysis

Received on Tuesday, 15 April 2003 09:49:56 UTC