UWS as a REST protocol

[Guy Rixon]

John,

it's possible to define a RESTful interface to VOSpace services, and, by
extension to VOSpace nodes. However, if the identifier for a VOSpace node is
http://mumble.mumble/... then it's tided to some specific site-name. The
vos:// notation lets us move the node transparently to a different host (or,
at least it lets us move the _space_; maybe not individual nodes); we can't do
this with http:// URIs except by DNS trickery.

I reckon that the indirection via the registry for finding VOSpaces is worth
it. I'd want to keep it even if VOSpace was a REST protocol.

Cheers,
Guy

On Mon, 26 Feb 2007, John Taylor wrote:

>
> (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
> >
>

Guy Rixon 				        gtr at ast.cam.ac.uk
Institute of Astronomy   	                Tel: +44-1223-337542
Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK, CB3 0HA		Fax: +44-1223-337523