On 28 July 2010 05:36, Nick Gall <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 7:35 AM, Alexander Johannesen < > [email protected]> wrote: > > In fact for me, REST eradicates > > most needs for middleware, and I suspect this might be why some push > > REST back into middleware (either through staying alive or lack of > > understanding), but that's just pure speculation. > > Indeed. All the middleware you need for REST is already built into the web: > web servers, caches, proxies, and client http libraries. The rest (npi) is > the application. If middleware vendors want to be useful in a REST world, > they should work on improving the ease of use and efficiency of web servers, > caches, proxies and client http libraries instead of foisting huge chunks of > software on top of or in between web elements. >
So why in 5 years hasn't this happened? Why haven't enterprises done this in 5 years? Could this possibly be that because the "middleware" is just an enabling piece (execution context from the OASIS SOA RM) and the real challenge is actually on the two ends of the communication engagement and the tooling and pieces that go around the "huge chunks of software" are actually the things that make it operationally useful? > > I've pointed this out > elsewhere<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/rest-discuss/message/13336>: > The difference in mindset between the RESTafarian and middlewareite camps is > fundamentally the same difference in mindset between dumb network and smart > network camps. Since the end-to-end debate has raged on for over 25 years, I > see no reason why the derivative REST-KISS vs MIDDLEWARE-LIO (lard it on) > shouldn't keep us entertained for just as long. > Ummm its the old "they are too dumb to understand my really clever approach" argument. That doesn't really gel with me as REST is fundamentally not KISS as KISS is about the people and the process parts rather than the technology parts in terms of efficiency of technology delivery. REST has not demonstrated that it is a KISS approach from a people or process perspective. KISS is Web Services, define an interface, publicise it, people can pick it up, lob it in tools, use it. REST is complex. Make a call, infer the interface, infer the result, infer what you do next, do all of this without decent tooling Now arguably REST is more powerful and flexible but arguing it is simpler makes the common techno-centric mistake of thinking that the complexity is in the number of IT moving parts rather than in the number of CONCEPTUAL moving parts. The primary problems in IT delivery are conceptual not technical, REST does not help, hence the reason it has been a failure up till this point. Steve > > -- Nick > > [Just discovered that I never sent this draft!] > > >
