>Why is REST so popular? Because it's easy to implement and works for lots of use cases.
Could have given the exact same non-argument for SOAP -- which in its time dominated corporate services.
Whether it's "easy to implement and works for lots of use cases", it's a moot point if there would be something even easier to implement and worked even better for real use cases.
Why stop at "easy" when you can have easier AND more coherent?
Besides, REST is anything like easy. Case in point, almost nobody ever correctly implemented the original REST spec -- that's why everybody calls their implementations "REST-ful", they are some loosely inspired deviations that cargo cult a lot of useless junk.
Supposedly the "real illuminated REST" (like real communism) doesn't even concern HTTP, it's a philosophy beyond web services. And yet's it's all the web related garbage part of the introductory examples that everybody follows (or tries to).
It’s an architectural style defined by Roy Fielding’s thesis (who also was the editor of HTTP/1.1 RFC). It attempted to describe the Web’s architecture in neutral terms and how it was derived by combining previous styles.
Some people took this and crafted a quasi religion out of it, but that’s partly because vendors in 2002 were all lined up trying to replace the web with a CORBA equivalent and then almost succeeded with SOAP/WS-*. People got strident to fight the dollars that were lined up. It’s easy to forget there was no powerful web/internet community with social media and blogging platforms in those days, it was all mailing lists and a couple of conferences vs. Marketing budgets, sales teams, and agenda-wielding engineers on standards bodies from Microsoft, IBM, BEA, Sun, HP, etc.
All RESTful means is that something is attempting to conform to the style. There never was a spec.
>It’s an architectural style defined by Roy Fielding’s thesis (who also was the editor of HTTP/1.1 RFC). It attempted to describe the Web’s architecture in neutral terms and how it was derived by combining previous styles.
It's application for what are essentially RPC needs is which I consider cargo cult.
Could have given the exact same non-argument for SOAP -- which in its time dominated corporate services.
Whether it's "easy to implement and works for lots of use cases", it's a moot point if there would be something even easier to implement and worked even better for real use cases.
Why stop at "easy" when you can have easier AND more coherent?
Besides, REST is anything like easy. Case in point, almost nobody ever correctly implemented the original REST spec -- that's why everybody calls their implementations "REST-ful", they are some loosely inspired deviations that cargo cult a lot of useless junk.
Supposedly the "real illuminated REST" (like real communism) doesn't even concern HTTP, it's a philosophy beyond web services. And yet's it's all the web related garbage part of the introductory examples that everybody follows (or tries to).