Re: the meaning of stateless

Mike Kelly wrote:
> 
> Here's how to do the above avoiding violation:
> 
> POST /submit-search-terms
> 201 Location: /execute-search?id=123
> 
> # dependence on context of previous interaction visible via URL
> GET /execute-search?id=123
> 

Here's how to do the above in harmony with the style:

GET /q?x=submit-terms-search
GET /q?x=search-submit-terms
GET /q?x=search-terms-submit
GET /q?x=terms-submit-search
GET /q?x=terms-search-submit
303 Location: /q?x=submit-search-terms

Dereferencing an alternate word-order may in fact create that resource
as a side-effect; because it's a side-effect the user-agent doesn't
need to know that 303 representation was just created.  REST certainly
doesn't require us to respond 404 when an equivalent resource exists.

Which is the same logic, by which we don't need to POST new searches to 
Google or any other search interface, to "create" them as new resources.

If multiple users, or even the same user, can be expected to (re)enter
the same terms (in any order), then the goals of the REST style are
certainly better met using GET so we can cache *how* we got the result,
instead of just caching the result with no entry link (a la POST).

-Eric