On 14.03.2007, at 11:16, Norman Gray wrote:
>
>> REST has no use for a parameter-based GET since the latter is an
>> operation or method performed upon some object, and conflates actions
>> with resources.
>
> I think there is a role for URLs with parameters in a REST-style
> interface (others disagree, I know). However it's rare, because it
> encourages this false analogy with procedure calls, and because of
> the problems which Guy describes in his earlier message. At the
> same time, I don't believe that this is the core issue, and that
> arguing about whether SIAP cutout URLs are RESTful or not is
> possibly a bit of a blind alley.
I too think that there is definitely a role for URLs with parameters in a REST-style interface - in the S*AP services, there is no strong natural ordering of parameters, and some of them are optional, so mapping them to a strict path style just does not work, as you cannot reliably associate them with a level in the path hierarchy
unless you start do to things like...
http://server.com/siap/ra=30/dec=20/
but even then
http://server.com/siap/dec=20/ra=30/
obviously (to a human reader) points at the same "resource" even though they are different uris - which is not usefully RESTful behaviour.
It seems to me that trying to be blindly 100% compliant with any methodology nearly always produces worse results than being a little flexible - in fact the skill of a good programmer is knowing when to break the rules.
Paul Harrison
ESO Garching
www.eso.org
Received on 2007-03-15Z14:33:40