On Dec 19, 2006, at 5:19 PM, Steve Jones wrote: [...] > > Which came first the Web or the REST paper? The answer is of course > the Web, REST does a good job of documenting much of the mechanics of > how the Web works, but if the REST paper didn't exist the Web would > still have been as successful. > > The REST paper does a good job of documenting what existed and then > suggesting new ways in which it could be used. It documents > pre-existing elements such as the return codes and the operations and > suggests how an increase in formalism (e.g. GET = idempotent) could > help applications perform. It also then further proposes how > server->server collaborations could be built by using the same > hyperlink approach that was previously used for browsers. > > So REST doesn't _define_ the way the Web works, it _documents_ and > proposes how it could _also_ be used. There is a big difference > between the two. > > TBL defined the core of the Web, lets not go all historical > revisionism just yet.
Steve, it's become very tiring to argue with you in this thread so I backed out of it. Still, you might want to read chapter 6 of the REST dissertation [1] again (try it, it's very readable and non-technical) and then reconsider these statements. I have some understanding for arguing that the success of the Web as a hypermedia system might not prove its applicability for company- internal, application-to-application integration scenarios. But with all due respect, claiming that the Web is not REST just seems silly to me. Stefan -- Stefan Tilkov, http://www.innoq.com/blog/st/ [1] http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/evaluation.htm
