There's a difference between service polymorphism and a uniform interface.
REST has a uniform interface, but it's not polymorphic.
If you request a GET on a resource, you will always get the resource
representation.
If you request a PUT on a resource, you will always replace the
resource representation.
If you request a POST on a resource, you will always post new
information to the resource.
If you request a DELETE on a resource, you will always delete the
resouce representation.
Each resource might exhibit slightly different behavior, but the
behavior of a particular resource (identified by its URI) should not
change.
Now -- if you are tunneling an RPC through a POST, then you can
implement support for polymorphism -- requesting a variety of
operations based on the type or content of information being posted --
but then you are violating REST principles.
Anne
On 9/10/06, Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On 10/09/06, Gregg Wonderly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > Steve Jones wrote:
> > >
> > > What do you mean by a polymorphic service? One that can handle
> > > multiple message types, or one that is polymorphic in terms of the
> > > contract it offers to consumers.
> > >
> > > If its the former then I don't see why not, if the service is
> > > something like "DataCleansing" and you can pass in multiple different
> > > data types for cleansing and it returns the cleansed data.
> > >
> > > If its the later then I think it might get a little tricky if the
> > > service changes its behaviour based on what it is passed!
> >
> >
> > Isn't this what REST does?
> >
>
>
> Oh boy, REST claims polymorphism. I thought REST stressed the
> importance of the URI? Which was resource specific? This puts it in
> the first case (which WS can certainly do as well) rather than the
> later (which WS and REST can both do but I don't think its a bad
> idea).
>
> Its what lots of MOM systems used to do, and was one of the reasons
> they got complex as you had lots of individual message types that the
> broker in the middle determined what should be done where, so the
> whole MOM was ineffect polymorphic based on message type.
>
>
>
>
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