AR023.7.1 (was Re: Dead trout

On Wed, Feb 19, 2003 at 10:11:19AM -0800, Burdett, David wrote:
> I really don't think that a simple REST interface is ideal in these
> circumstances as you are not doing a PUT of the order to the supplier you
> are really requesting an action that will result in a process being executed
> that will return a set of information that reflects the results of that
> process.

Right, PUT's the wrong method in this case.  It appears as though POST
would be the appropriate method to use.

> I think that we should recognize that this type of problem is going to be a
> very common use case for "web services" and allow both REST and non-REST
> approaches to both exist.
> 
> One possible way to do this might be to:
> 1. Define the REST "verbs" as the normative set of verbs to be used
> 2. Allow additional verbs to be added as required.
> 
> Thoughts?

REST already allows new methods to be defined, so long as they are
uniformly meaningful to all resources.  But assuming you meant
non-uniform methods (like those defined in WSDL docs) then sure, that's
a good idea, and is really what I was trying to accomplish by proposing
AR023.7.1[1]; provide early and late bound access to the same services,
and let them duel it out.

So it sounds like you and I agree that GET, PUT, and POST (in the
abstract, not necessarily as defined in RFC 2616) constitute such a
late bound interface.  This would certainly meet the requirement.  What
do others think?

 [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/wsa-reqs#AR023.7.1

MB
-- 
Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca
Web architecture consulting, technical reports, evaluation & analysis