07/22/08 :: [REST] Stu's Response [permalink]
Stu responded to my post on BEA's epitaph. Apologies I missed it, I was on vacation.
Stu, all I see is that pretty much no one is using RESTful approaches for real-world problems:
a) Flash, Flex, Air, Silverlight, GWT,... pretty much every RIA framework is not following REST
b) Who is using REST to solve enterprise integration problems again? B2B integration?
c) Who is using REST to build enterprise solutions? SAP, Oracle, SalesForce?
d) Google, Amazon, and others REST innovators are not religious about it: use it when it makes sense, use something else when it doesn't.
Show me again the articles and the presentation where the RESTafarians are detailing how REST implementations work to solve real-world problems? Then and only then we'll all have the knowledge to talk reasonably and logically. The (other) REST community is simply no better than a typical Enterprise Software Vendor. They are ready to use the same tactics to drive scores of developers in their camp, without even the beginning of a plan, just a URI syntax, a handful of verbs and pathetic IANA media types, not to mention the APP crutches. And just with that in their viaticum, the RESTarbarians are burning anything on their path. The reality is that today IT architects and managers have to defend their choices because a handful of idiots claim that they can do everything for pennies on the dollar with a marvelous technology, HTTP, based on REST principles.
Yes the Web is something you cannot ignore but claiming any kind of victory because a some bored developers in Redmond added a couple annotations in WCF and created a CRUD framework based on GET, PUT and DELETE is kind of a stretch.
So you can claim I don't have much to say, but frankly, do you have "anything" to say?
The only issue I have with the (other) REST camp is that they are incapable of any logical discussions while knowing very well what they are doing (burning everything on their path). Guys like yourself, Stefan, Steve and others cannot be that stupid, you cannot ignore any of the questions that people are asking (not just me). There are a number of issues that you will simply not discuss and you are ready to bring everyone else with you hiding everything that does not work or is not cooked up yet. You worth nothing more than the people that started WS-* in ebXML's back almost 10 years ago with the moniker that SOAP, WSDL and UDDI were the only things you'll ever need. We know how that story ended, a few specs were added to these "all-you'll-ever-need" specs cooked up in weeks behind closed doors.
As you know, I have nothing to sell, I don't care about building a career on what I say. If you don't like what I write, just read another blog. I can be defined with this discussion I had with Dave Chappell in 2004 at the Indigo's SDR where he told me that I was wasting my career if I was not siding behind what Microsoft is saying. No, I don't mind wasting my career, if having a career means that you have to repeat whatever Microsoft, IBM, Oracle or the RESTafarians are saying -religiously. I am a Ph.D. I only live by knowledge, logic and reason, not by interest. I may not always be knowledgeable, logical or reasonable but it is easy to point out that to me. I don't think we share the same values or have the same career objectives, therefore I think any discussion is impossible. I have tried, very hard.
but..."To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle"...