Re: XMLSERVICE

Richard,

It's unclear to me what your definition is...

For a web service to be RESTful, the HTTP method must control the action, and the URL must identify the business object to operate on.

Example:

GET http://example.com/orders/12345

This would retrieve an order number 12345. The "verb" is the HTTP method, in this case, GET -- which means to retrieve. The URL identifies the order.

PUT http://example.com/orders/12345

Same URL, but this time it creates/replaces the order, because the PUT method was used.

POST http://example.com/orders/12345

Modifies an order, because it's a POST operation

DELETE http://example.com/orders/12345

Hopefully you get the picture. Now let's say I decided to do this using XMLSERVICE

POST http://example.com/cgi-bin/xmlcgi.pgm

The object being identified would be in an uploaded XML document. The action to perform would also be in the uploaded XML document. The action is NOT determined by the HTTP method. The object to operate on is NOT determined by the URL. It's not RESTful.

It has nothing to do with whether the parameters are/aren't in XML. It's the very fact that the object to operate on is _in_ a parmeter (as opposed to the URL) and the action to take is also _in_ a parameter (as opposed to using the HTTP method) that tells us that it is not RESTful.

I only skimmed the article you linked to, but it seems to agree with me.

You refer to "small semantics" and an in earlier post you referred to "purists". The problem is, these "small" semantics you refer to are the /defining/ characteristics of what RESTful is.

Saying that XMLSERVICE is RESTful except for small semantics is like saying that I'm a woman except for small semantics. I'm very similar to a woman! I have a head, two arms, two legs. I speak the same human languages that women speak. I eat, sleep, breathe, drive cars, read books, and type on a keyboard, just like a woman does. There are only a few small differences between me and a woman, right? The problem is... those small differences _are_ the defining characteristics. Namely, that I'm MALE.

The same is true with XMLSERVICE. It's not RESTful, because it doesn't use the HTTP method as a verb, or the URL as the noun, and these are the defining characteristics of what it means to be RESTful.


On 1/26/2012 7:20 PM, Richard Schoen wrote:

Here's an interesting article on RESTful services

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-restful/

I think other than having to format a parameter as XML, XMLSERVICE fits the RESTful definition pretty closely outside of using the actual URL as parameters.

Small semantics in my opinion :)

To me RESTful is anything where I can pass a formatted URL with parms of some sort and get data back in XML, JSON or whatever format I desire.

Maybe you have a tighter definition on RESTful, but I like my definition.

Regards,
Richard Schoen
RJS Software Systems Inc.
Where Information Meets Innovation
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I would call XMLSERVICE "POX" (Plain Old XML). It's definitely not REST...

On 1/26/2012 5:56 PM, Richard Schoen wrote:

Yes, the purists might say it's probably not true REST, but to me it
fits the concept of almost REST just fine :-)