This is a single archived entry from Stefan Tilkov’s blog. For more up-to-date content, check out my author page at INNOQ, which has more information about me and also contains a list of published talks, podcasts, and articles. Or you can check out the full archive.

REST Interview

Stefan Tilkov,

When I first linked to the podcast Markus Völter did with me a while back, I hadn’t actually listened to it. Now I’ve done that (unsure what this says about my ego), I’ll note that Markus actually managed to extracted some answers I can’t remember having written down before. So maybe it is worth listening to, after all (I have a hard time listening to my own voice, but that’s normal, I guess).

I actually listened to a few other of Software Engineering’s podcasts, too – there is some really great stuff, such as the one on Lisp with Richard Gabriel, as well as some really bad ones, like the one with Olaf Zimmermann :-) In any case, it shows that Markus knows his stuff, re-affirming my belief in the quality of unprofessional journalism.

On June 12, 2008 11:39 AM, Markus Voelter said:

Thanks :-)

On June 25, 2008 4:03 PM, Sean Kennedy said:

Hi Stefan, I have listened to the Olf Zimmermann podcast also. Can I ask what you did not like about it? I am writing a paper on the pro’s and con’s of WS-, REST and POX.. Summary thus far: WS- advantages are : protocol transparency/independence; QoS (reliability, xactions, security); mature tooling (rpc-style leads to quick learning curve). WS-* disadvantages are - URL is of SOAP server => proxies and cache servers cant do their work; not consistent with Semantic Web; unique interface (WSDL) is not scalable; too many specs. can be confusing. REST advantages are: simplicity; proxy/cache servers can do their job; consistent with Sem Web; uniform interface is scalable; disadvantages are: how does REST implement QoS?; - is Bill de hOras HTTPLR RESTs answer to reliability? - I think HTTPS is fine for security - how does REST deal with transactions?? POX : the only reason I have this in here is that a big bank here implemented SOA without knowing of REST and they did not like SOAP - they just sent XML msgs back and forth…

Have I missed anything?

Thanks, Sean.

On June 27, 2008 9:54 AM, Stefan Tilkov Author Profile Page said:

Hi Sean, maybe you want to check out: http://www.infoq.com/articles/tilkov-rest-doubts

My main problem with Olaf’s statement was that “all of the REST principles are available in the WS-* core”, which is just plain bullshit.

On July 8, 2008 12:31 PM, Sean Kennedy said:

Thanks Stefan. Can you explain in more detail what you meant in the interview by not using sessions. Could you give an example please.

Thanks, Sean.