On Dec 9, 2006, at 8:53 PM, Mark Baker wrote: > I can only > conclude that they simply aren't trying, and that they dismiss my > arguments out of hand.
That is the impression most of the times, yes. FWIW, I always hope for lurkers being out there that take something out of these discussions; hopefully to a point where they feel the can start asking questions (over at rest-discuss :-). What is hard about understanding REST, IMO, is that you really need to build up a lot of foundational knowledge in the area of distributed/networked systems to see what problems REST is addressing. Without understanding the problems, understanding REST is maybe simply impossible. If one understands distributed systems to be designed and implemented by a centralized crowd (single point of authority) and also that they never evolve once deployed - then REST is pointless. OTH, there is a lot than can be done in providing more guidelines (patterns) how to solve scenarios common to enterprise systems. I think that by bringing in Atom and the Atom Publishing Protocol as pervasive standards (and thereby limiting the possible design space) the questions can be more targetted and the answers simplified by including less details. IOW, the design discussions can take place one level higher; more within the realm of a software developer than a protocol and architecture expert. An example: If one asks: how do I go about order processing with HTTP, the answer would usually need to include that the media type to be used for representing orders would include the necessary link and form semantics to enable order processing and that it would include a means to represent orders. If we assume Atom and APP to be pervasive, the processing means are already in place[1] and the answer to the question would more or less be: "Atom is used as the doc envelope, APP handles editing, submitting, service discovery and what needs to be done is to pick a representation format for the orders (make up your own or pick from UBL, EDIFACT, ebXML and friends). [1] Modulo maybe a small Atom extension for order processing Jan
