--- Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is there another possibility, namely that message exchange actually > works so why change? There is a fascination in IT with having the > theoretically "best" approach rather than just one that is "good > enough". If the current approach is successful (which it is) then > what is the justification for change? Well, in a sense, message exchange actually does work, since hypermedia systems are really just a higher abstraction of a message passing system. The issue is, and I think you've been calling for this yourself, elevating the level of discourse into concepts that are actually aligned to the domain. This is largely a problem of social scope & governance. Most message exchange models are based around federation of a sort. Hypermedia is intended to work within an anarchy (i.e. no central control or explicitly shared goals). > So there would be quite a bit of upfront design required to achieve > this end then? I'm not disagreeing but you might want to have a chat > with Jan. At the end of this will we have something like > "app/invoice" as a media type ? Potentially, yes, if the goal was to create hypermedia for order processing.... > > And we would need to extend browsers and/or introduce new kinds of > user > > agents to understand these new media types. > > I'd say it would be user-agents more than browsers as much of this is > machine -> machine rahter than machine->human. True. > > And that's absolutely true. There are many other specifications > > composed in HTTP via reference. The value in HTTP is in the > > consistent interface it exposes, but it stands on the shoulders of > > others, and requires new media types to apply in new areas. > > So given that REST is very early in the standards area and has none > of > the support that SOAP/WSDL had in 2000, why will it succeed? I think it's the dark horse. The web exists, and has succeeded wildly. The syndication web is rising rapidly and challenging entire industries (journalism). It may take time, but in the long run, I think it'd be risky to bet against it. Cheers Stu ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited
