new version of REST in the VO

[Douglas Tody]

Hi Guys -

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, schaaff at newb6.u-strasbg.fr wrote:
> The last version of the draft concerning the work about "REST in the VO"
> André and Norman

Taking a quick look through this I see it discusses only "pure" REST,
that is, a HTTP-based interface pattern based upon the Web-resource or
"file" abstraction.  This is fine, and it is great to see a survey of
this technology, but it should be noted that this interface pattern
is distinct from the function+parameters object-oriented (rather than
file-abstraction-oriented) model used by most of the Web, as well as
by the DAL interfaces.

I think it is fine to define some recommended practices for interfaces
based upon the pure-REST abstraction, but this should not in any way
invalidate the DAL2 interface pattern(*), which is already standardized
and widely used within the VO (and also based upon a HTTP transport).

One thing which could be a good addition to the document might be a few
words about the conceptual model for pure-REST, and how it constrasts
to more object-oriented models such as SOAP and HTTP request+parameters
(DAL2, OpenGIS, etc.), including the types of problems for which each
is best suited.

 	- Doug


(*) http://www.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/SiaInterface/DAL2_Architecture.pdf