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Paul Prescod wrote: > Francis Norton wrote: >> >>Would a WSDL-specified service using HTTP POST or HTTP GET count as >>REST? If so (or even if not) would passing an XML request block via HTTP >>POST count as REST? > > At one point I hoped so but when I dug down into the details the answer, > alas is no. The Web is a resource-centric information system. A WSDL > service description describes *at most* one resource. As soon as you > pass around a URI to another resource the WSDL loses any ability to > describe that other resource. If you generate a resource at runtime > (which almost every web site or web service does) then at "compile time" > there obviously does not exist a WSDL that describes it. > > I've started jotting down thoughts about what something like WSDL for > XML-based REST web services would look like: > > * http://www.prescod.net/wrdl.html > Thanks - I'll be reading this on the train home (in ten minutes). How far do orchestration languages like XLANG and WSFL address your concern about composability? If I understand REST aesthetics at all, I guess that a REST approach would favour bottom-up (each service tells you about its acceptable successors) openness over top-down (you get the whole map pre-written) completeness. Never underestimate the power of emergent properties.... Francis.
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