Tim Bray and REST
The (qualified) support of REST in favor of WS-* seems to be a meme that's making the rounds. (See my earlier reference to Tim Oren's recent post.) Tim Bray has never been shy about expressing his opinions, but he doesn't make these kinds of statements unless and until he's given them quite a bit of consideration.
InfoWorld Tech Watch | InfoWorld | Sun's Bray backs REST | May 18, 2007 04:13 PM | By Paul Krill
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"What we need to be able to build is apps that run across all these [systems] and that remains a problem that is substantially unsolved," said Bray, who plans to make these same points in a keynote presentation on Saturday.
The WS-* (pronounced ws star) stack has failed to solve the problem of interoperability, said Bray. REST presents a better approach, Bray said. He is not alone in supporting REST. David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the Ruby on Rails framework, also believes in the technology. Incidentally, Hansson pans WS-*, too.
"I think there's not enough emphasis across the whole spectrum of IT in integrating with other systems," Bray said.
"We're starting to see an emerging consensus that the best bet for that kind of stuff is based on REST architecture and Web-style computing," Bray said. REST has provided the basis for the World Wide Web, he said. But tools are needed for REST, he said.
To further propagate the meme, there's Mark Hansen's new book, SOA Using Java Web Services, in which he starts the conversation of SOA with REST, rather than SOAP or WSDL-based services. (I suppose it's not too surprising, given that he's heavily involved with with Project GlassFish and a member of the expert group for JAX-RS (the Java API for RESTful Web Services).
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