Steve Jones wrote: > On 23/02/07, Peter Madziak <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:peter.madziak%40gmail.com>> wrote: > > But in a RESTful setting you wouldn't POST a <cancel>...</cancel> to: > > http://RESTsvc.com/PO5432 <http://RESTsvc.com/PO5432> > > > > but rather use DELETE on that URI. > > You do not _delete_ an order, you _cancel_ it. There is a big > difference between the two. Companies want to know what orders have > been cancelled so they can track that. Asking people to "delete" an > order goes against the standard agree semantics of purchase and > supply. > > The request is "cancel", it isn't "POST", that is the mechanism (like > a phone call).
This is an interesting point because we've had lots of discussion here about HTTP being an "application protocol". This overloading of "delete" to mean "cancel" could be an abuse of that "operation". Would people really consider using "DELETE" for something that was "like" delete, such as cancel. This still makes me a bit confused about where the real value is in HTTP as a RESTful solution since there are limited operations, and if you aren't getting, putting or deleting, then you are posting a command. Wouldn't it be more uniform to just have post? And, if you just had post (and you knew I'd ask again), how is that different from something like RMI's "invoke"? I ask again, because I didn't see a direct response to my followup of Anne's posting, so I'm not sure whether that's a "we give up, he just doesn't get it" response, or what. Gregg Wonderly
