On 12/9/06, Gervas Douglas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Writing as a neutral non-technical observer, I have to state that your points > here do resonate, Sanjiva. Certain people in this Group obviously know a lot > about REST and equally obviously are keen devotees of the approach. However > when someone as evidently experienced and bright as Steven has such > difficulty in clarifying basic issues, it does give the impression that the > RESTafarians still have a bit of work to do in at least explaining the use of > REST in terms that are as clear and simple as the claimed nature of REST.
It's really hard. Take my latest InfoQ article about separation of concerns, for example (motivated by the lengthy "pizza order" discussions we had here months ago, in fact); http://www.infoq.com/articles/separation-of-concerns That explains, in the simplest possible terms I could (which *are* pretty darn simple, IMO), why REST services are essentially Web services + loose coupling resulting from *actually* separating interface from implementation. But what has the response been? From Web services proponents at least, dismissive. They don't even bother to try to explain *why* I'm wrong; they bring up issues which have nothing at all to do with the conclusion of the article or the method by which it came to that conclusion. These are smart folk too. Some of them, brilliant. I can only conclude that they simply aren't trying, and that they dismiss my arguments out of hand. I suspect this is because the implications of me being right are pretty difficult to absorb. >There is obviously far more vendor support for WS-*, and this could arguably be explained in partly politico-commercial terms, but is this widespread support entirely without technical merit?? You really want me to answer that one? 8-) Mark.
