Re: conneg considered harmful

Mike Kelly wrote:
> 
> What do you mean by 'undefined'? Running code has definitive
> behaviour: http://caniuse.com/
> 

REST is a defined architectural style.  The link you've posted is all
about where a set of moving-goalpost features overlap at a moment in
time, which is hardly the same thing.  While system behavior may be
definable, it's a by-product of the design process, as opposed to goals
used to guide the design process.  What I mean by defined architecture
would be some sort of Taylor-school definition of just what's trying to
be accomplished, like REST was the model for the move to HTTP 1.1.

>
> What is it, specifically, that you feel may be about to render
> browsers infeasible as the basis for a RESTful system?
> 

Silent error correction, content sniffing being used as a reason to
deprecate Content-Type, any number of RFC 3986 violations -- we're
clearly off into uncharted territory with little or no resemblance to
REST, and I've just scratched the surface.  What else to make of this
move to just not mention "resource" and redefine URIs to identify
either documents or services?  How is it possible to be more anti-REST?

>
> Is there anything missing that would make it feasible and if so why
> is it missing? e.g. why did the efforts to introduce PUT and DELETE
> to <form> fail?
> 

What's missing is browser-vendor knowledge of architecture, or any HTTP/
URI interoperability issues not involving browsers.  I won't speculate
as to why, it's not as if Roy didn't used to waste his breath explaining
to these people the finer points of why ad-hoc changes to WebArch are
short-sighted.  Sufficient explanation to me of why no PUT, DELETE,
Xforms, list goes on -- not to mention feature removal...

Clearly, the future of REST no longer lies with the browser.  My status
nowadays is "on sabbatical" to recover my health, after recently "re-
homing" the last of my clients -- that one since 1994 which is how long
I've been developing Web sites for consumption in browsers.  I have a 9-
week-old Alaskan Malamute to help me drop at least a couple stone before
I return, may take a few years.

I'll continue to participate here, but when I return to Web development
it certainly looks like I'll be forsaking the browser for the native
app, where I can continue to bring my clients positive returns on their
online investments by leveraging REST to deal with the realities of the
netowrk currently being denied by the browser vendors.

Should be interesting to watch, but the "new direction" has caused me
to pull my horse from the race; I no longer have any vested interest
nor do I care about the future of browsers.  Only a sense that we'll be
cleaning up the mess for a long time to come -- corporate production
cycles, marketing imperatives, and bottom lines are no way to guide
the Web's architectural development, and this era can't end well.

-Eric