--- Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Which I have.... one of the big problems with IT though is that > everyone thinks that _they_ are the innovator (Agile "inventing" > iterations for instance, and that in fact they have discovered the > silver bullet.
I've heard you say this before, but I've never heard any of the Agile leaders claim anything of the sort. It was more of popularizing the notion that "it's OK to iterate" when one is dealing with uncertainty and circular dependencies. Something that many have known in other disciplines, but most project managers didn't accept (and still often don't!) > REST shifts XML docs from A to B, it provides a way for a dynamic > interface to be communicated to a user. The creates a complex > programming model that requires significant upfront investment for a > purported ROI at a "later date". I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, as this keeps going in circles. Understanding REST's value in terms of how it improves "A talks to B" is not possible, it requires a long view of time, scale, and control that REST proponents here have been unable to communicate well and you've been unwilling to concede. > There is not ONE single thing that > REST is talking about that hasn't been done previously, and the > problem sphere of REST is one of the least critical part of any > successful distributed system (namely the execution context). Distributed communication has never been done at the scale of the Web (scale in terms of diversity of content, heterogeneity of participants, and marginal cost to integrate). I have little idea what you mean by execution context, as it's a broad term (and an unfamiliar one). > REST is _not_ a silver bullet, remote invocation is _not_ a challenge > and REST is only disruptive in that it stops people looking for the > true disruption which will come when we consider remote invocation a > true commodity. In 1971, this might read as: "Relations are _not_ a silver bullet, data management is _not_ a challenge, and relational databases are only disruptive in that they stop people looking for the true disruption which will come when we consider data management a true commodity." I liken REST to relational databases as a disruptive innovation, with Fielding's thesis akin to Codd's paper in 1970. And yet relations still generate debate, confusion, and doubt to this day, and those older systems still exist to a great degree. Ultimately these debates won't change whether REST is or isn't a disruptive innovation -- the market determines that. I think in one sense, it's already proven to be so via the success of web. Integration, on the other hand, does. So it's mostly a matter of the market shaking out the right complements that are required to take REST effective for areas where these established approaches rule. Cheers Stu __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
