> What bothers me is when folks try to explain REST using excessive > hyperbole and exaggeration, and negating the value of other > approaches, as if acknowledging the validity of them somehow would > diminish the importance of REST. Which isn't the case, of course.
I presume that you're referring to this comment I made earlier. > In contrast, since WS-* is without constraint, it can't be said to > exhibit any desirable property--whether done well or poorly. I'll admit to a little trolling, but this is not hyperbole, it is not a matter of opinion, and it is not a blanket statement based on religious fervor. The fact is that there is a paper out there -- you know the one -- that analyzes all prevalent means of distributed computing and teases out the properties they exhibit and the design factors that brought about those properties. Then, emphasizing "constraint and understanding of the system context," applies those design factors (constraints) to a new architectural style such that the end result is a system that provably! exhibits the properties desired. Those properties being separation of concerns, scalability, reliability, visibility, performance, simplicity, and evolvability. Since no such effort was ever undertaken with WS-*, then, ipso facto, it cannot be said to exhibit any desirable property. Technically, this is not quite true. Since WS-* is fundamentally RPCs with angle brackets, it can be said to exhibit the property inherent in a client-server architecture, i.e., separation of concerns. Note, the above does not mean that WS-* can't be made to work. Like most any technology, it quite obviously can. And that means that it's delivering some amount of value to the people that use it. But neither of those things makes the above statement any less true. It may seem like I'm splitting hairs, but it's important, and it's why this debate goes on. As Anne said, there are a significant number of people on this list and elsewhere who continue to misunderstand what REST is. And these people have influence in the world at large. I, at least, consider it a worthwhile goal to enrich the Web; to indeed have a Web of services. But, as should be clear, WS-* is not of the Web, for the Web is REST and WS-* is not RESTful. Therefore, it is the best interest of the Web that WS-* not be use to cleave off thousands of private networks. Informing and influencing WS-* thought leaders is one way of keeping that from happening. Maybe you'll concede me the Web. "Sure," you might say, "if you have a public facing service/resource, use REST. But enterprise issues are different. And, besides, my intranet is not part of the Web." To this I say, fine. Knock yourself out. But remember, the properties that made the Web so successful can be leveraged to make your enterprise more successful too: you can make information more available, systems less brittle, applications more scalable. Just as the browser-oriented Web completely changed how internal applications are developed, so too can a machine-oriented Web.
