How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004) • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

#21

Post by eksith » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 1:54 PM UTC

WayneDB wrote: post #14

What a bunch of hogwash. Everything does not fit into the request/response model of HTTP and the Internet is certainly the web.

"...the internet is certainly the web" sounds like religion to me.

A highway is a type of road. As are streets, byways, lanes, courts etc... URLs need not be protocol specific, but having a standard makes inter-protocol communication that much simpler. In fact the post was primarily about how we label things (nouns, verbs etc...). I'd say most things fit the model of giving, taking and changing things, no?

Re: How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

#22

Post by kijin » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 1:56 PM UTC

Aardwolf wrote: post #4

> Wife: You mean "http" like the beginning of what I type into the browser? What browser does she use? It wasn't required to type that anymore for ages already :)

The article was written in 2004, but even today, a lot of advertisements, name cards, and other types of printed material still contain URLs that begin with http and www. As a result, some people still type in all those characters when they want to look up a web site. In fact, this practice might be more common among non-tech-savvy people (such as the wife in this story) than among HNers (who know which parts of a URL are optional).

Re: How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

#23

Post by hobbyist » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 2:14 PM UTC

Correct me if I am wrong here. So, instead of the eloquent method of using GET, POST and PUT on resources, the current practice is about the programmer writing custom parsers to get the information they want and then use them accordingly.

Re: How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

#24

Post by icebraining » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 2:19 PM UTC

shubhamjain wrote: post #15

I don't wish to read essays but i guess it is just a way to transmitt information on web, get and post methods, mainly.

Nope, REST can apply to any channels, not just the web.

Re: How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

#25

Post by sp332 » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 2:21 PM UTC

WayneDB wrote: post #14

What a bunch of hogwash. Everything does not fit into the request/response model of HTTP and the Internet is certainly the web.

Email (not webmail, but IMAP and POP etc) uses the internet but is not part of the web. There are other examples but I think that's the easiest to see.

Re: How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

#26

Post by petercooper » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 2:26 PM UTC

cerales wrote: post #16

So Ryan Tomayko's conversions with his wife are akin in tone and style to a language textbook aimed at tweens?

Better than the equivalent conversation in our house.

Me: Hey, do you want to learn about a core principle of how the Web works? ;; Her: Huh? ;; Me: You know, the thing Facebook runs on. ;; Her: Oh right. No then.

It's lucky there are more interesting things than technology for us to talk about, thankfully! :-)

Re: How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

#27

Post by icebraining » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 2:27 PM UTC

Aardwolf wrote: post #4

> Wife: You mean "http" like the beginning of what I type into the browser? What browser does she use? It wasn't required to type that anymore for ages already :)

I don't think it was ever required (even when it was shown), but people still typed it.

Re: How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

#28

Post by ebbv » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 2:33 PM UTC

I can't stand the "blog post as conversation" format. It's fine if you're quoting a conversation for one or two paragraphs, but for something this long you should do me (the reader) the courtesy of speaking directly to me.

Also this is giving way too much credit for the creation of the URL. The format of the URL is not some miracle, genius insight. It is a natural result of network computing, and similar descriptors of how to find a file on a remote system had existed previously for ages.

Re: How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

#29

Post by cawel » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

telemachos wrote: post #18

tlrobinson wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, all of these have identical links. Usually Hacker News doesn't let you post the same link more than once.

> Usually Hacker News doesn't let you post the same link more than once. I believe that's wrong. From what I've seen, I think that that time is also a factor. After some amount of time, you can repost things with exactly the same link and title. And I believe that it's deliberate (the posts are likely to be new to many people since the population turns over to some degree after x amount of time).

And that time period might be at most a month, considering the last post with the exact same link (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5186774 ) predates the current post by 31 days.

Re: How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

#30

Post by matt_yoho » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

ebbv wrote: post #28

I can't stand the "blog post as conversation" format. It's fine if you're quoting a conversation for one or two paragraphs, but for something this long you should do me (the reader) the courtesy of speaking directly to me. Also this is giving way too much credit for the creation of the URL. The format of the URL is not some miracle, genius insight. It is a natural result of network computing, and similar descriptors…

This is an example of a Socratic Dialog[1], and relies on metaphor. It's in that way a piece of art useful as a teaching tool, but as such it trades some precision for the end effect.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_dialogue