Re: REST and DELETE?

Jan,

On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 6:50 PM, Jan Algermissen
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Think about it this way:
>
> Because REST explicitly allows the server to independently change at any time, the messages sent by the client must be 'designed' to allow the server to detect any mismatch between the client's intent and what the server is about to do as a result of the request.
>

I appreciate the fact that you are trying to address the impact of
sending messages that are not self-description.  However, I still
don't see how how embedding content versus referring to an existing
resource makes the message any more robust in capturing the users
intent.  I can imagine scenarios where the user explicitly wants to
refer to a time varying resource.  Embedding a representation of that
resource would result in a loss of fidelity of the message.

>
> IOW, the semantics of the message (the deducable intended effect) must, under no cicumstances, be dependent on the nature of the recipient.
>

I am really struggling to grasp this concept.  You seem to be saying
that a self-descriptive message must be deterministic, which seems
impossible unless resource state was read-only.

I must be mis-intepreting you.

Darrel