UWS as a REST protocol

[John Taylor]

(getting in here before Norman Gray does)....I understand that it  
would be more RESTful to use the http Accept header, rather than an  
explicit FORMAT parameter.  If we were really hardcore we'd also use  
URIs that are dereferencable using standard protocols....so VOSpace  
resources would be name http://something rather than vos:// 
something.  Is that possible Matthew, or wouldn't that be compatible  
with the VOSpace spec?

John

On 26 Feb 2007, at 22:11, Matthew Graham wrote:

> Hi,
>> As a counter example, if we have an access reference such as
>>
>>     http://webtest.aoc.nrao.edu/ivoa-dal/JhuProxySsap?
>>     REQUEST=getData&FORMAT=votable&PubDID=ivo%3A%2F%2Fjhu%2Fsdss...
>>
>> Then I suggest this is probably about as RESTful as most URLs which
>> reference static files (so long as the dataset identifier is  
>> persistent).
>>
>> The main point of REST appears to be simplicity, elegance, and  
>> reuse of
>> standard protocols and infrastructure.
>>
> The main point of REST is having resources which can be accessed  
> through a standard CRUD interface that maps onto the HTTP methods:
>
> CREATE = POST
> RETRIEVE = GET
> UPDATE = PUT
> DELETE = DELETE
>
> Something like: http://somewhere.com/SomeProxy? 
> REQUEST=delete&filename=mytable
> is not RESTful since you're using an HTTP GET method to delete a  
> resource. REST is by nature resource-oriented (hence the need for  
> everything to be addressable by a URI) and not service-oriented  
> like most CGI (HTTP GET) scripts and SOAP.
>
>    Cheers,
>
>    Matthew
>