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How I Explained REST to My Wife (2004)

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

#41

Post by siamore »

Isn't representation of resources what the semantic web is supposed to be about? if I wanted to make someone understand the semantic web I would say something like this,

ontologies are data with corresponding metadata about everything on a domain or site.

These ontologies allow the data to be parsed automatically, i.e sites like amazon could just make their data available as ontologies and third party sites could "read through the sites for us". These third party sites serve as a portal from where we could ask for what we want and they would in turn look through the sites available (eBay, amazon etc) using the ontologies and get the best deal for us.

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

#43

Post by dgreensp »

Yes, and we also have XML, the Academically Correct and proven-in-the-field way to represent all entities.

I get the "URLs are nouns" metaphor, but I don't think it needs any additional promotion or particularly favors HTTP over whatever else might emerge.

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

#44

Post by philwelch »

B-Con wrote: post #34
ebbv wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. I think something would have to be done with a bit more art and skill before I would consider it Socratic dialogue. This is just a clumsy blog post that is annoying to read, IMHO.

> This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. I would not overlook the possibility that they were just excited to formally reference something called "Socratic dialogue". It seems we like finding formal names for things on HN.

If only there was a formal name for that behavior.

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

#45

Post by WayneDB »

eksith wrote: post #21
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?

I meant to say the internet is NOT the web...as in not HTTP.

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

#46

Post by jsdalton »

ebbv wrote: post #31
matt_yoho wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. I think something would have to be done with a bit more art and skill before I would consider it Socratic dialogue. This is just a clumsy blog post that is annoying to read, IMHO.

> This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week.

The blog post is from 2004 -- about nine years ago -- a time when there really wasn't much information about REST out there aside from Roy Fielding's dissertation. I recall reading this essay a few years later during my own what-the-heck-is-this-REST-thing-all-about phase and finding it relatively helpful.

If he'd just published this blog post today your criticism would have a lot more merit.

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

#47

Post by sp332 »

bct wrote: post #38
sp332 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"The web" isn't exactly a well-defined concept. There's a school of thought in which anything with a URI is part of the web.

Emails don't have URIs. My email boxes don't have URIs. My main problem is that there's no way to link emails together, so they're not really part of any web.

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

#48

Post by ebbv »

kragen wrote: post #39
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…

It seems natural in retrospect, but it actually took a surprisingly long time to invent. The URL didn't exist until 1990; people had been putting files on FTP sites since 1973 or so, 27 years at that point, and there wasn't even a standard piece of software which, given "wuarchive.wustl.edu:/foo/bar/baz.txt", would give you the contents of baz.txt. (ncftp supported that by 1994, IIRC, but no vendor shipped ncftp as s…

rcp came out with 4.2BSD in 1983.

rcp somemachine:/some/folders/somefile.txt

Is remarkably similar to:

http://somemachine/some/folders/somefile.txt

Don't get me wrong. The Web is one of the most important developments in the history of computing, or even of mankind.

But like I said, the original article makes the URL out to be some unique, genius invention that came out of nowhere. When in reality it evolved very naturally out of existing network computing practices.

Here's the clue that the article is wrong; when URLs came on the scene everybody who was using the internet at that time understood them intuitively. That's because they were a natural evolution of what was already there.

Of course, that's usually the case with just about anything people say is revolutionary and came out of nowhere. If you look at the actual context that the thing came from, there's a completely logical progression. It only seems like it came out of nowhere to people who weren't there.

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

#49

Post by zedr »

What do you think about the separation of Web sites and Web services (so-called APIs)? Shouldn't the Web site be the Web service, and offer multiple representations of its endpoints?

As a trivial example, consider that I have a blog located at the URIL http://www.example.org/posts/

If I were to offer an API to other developers, I would have two options: 1) serve posts as `application/json` at the URI http://www.example.org/api/v1/posts ; 2) serve both `text/html` and a `application/json` representations at the same URI http://www.example.org/posts , handling the desired mime-type and API version in the 'Accept' field of the HTTP request.

Which approach is better?

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

#50

Post by glenjamin »

sp332 wrote: post #47
bct wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The web" isn't exactly a well-defined concept. There's a school of thought in which anything with a URI is part of the web.

Emails don't have URIs. My email boxes don't have URIs. My main problem is that there's no way to link emails together, so they're not really part of any web.

Does mailto:person@example.com not count as a URI to your mailbox?
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