REST Compliance Officer

March 17, 2009 📬 Get My Weekly Newsletter

With regard to this blog on REST compliance

Me: The Gliffy API is RESTFul
REST Compliance Officer: Does a "PUT" update the data at the given URL?
Me: Yes.
RCO: Trick Question! It's "URI". Is the only way to create a new resource done with a "POST"?
Me: Yes.
RCO: Is there exactly one endpoint, from which any and all resource locators are discoverable?
Me: Um, no, that puts undue burden on the client libraries, and over-complicates what we were trying to accomp....
RCO: YOU ARE NOT RESTFUL! READ FIELDING'S DISSERTATION, THE HTTP SPEC AND IMPLEMENT AN RFC-COMPLIANT URI PARSER IN THREE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. NEXT!

Thank GODS that REST doesn't have a spec. If it did, it would still be in development.


P.S. If you are going to coin a term and you want to bitch about it being misused, maybe calling it a "style" isn't the best idea.