Why Developers Are Interested in REST
I had a laugh when I saw James Kovacs' blog post abot Why Developers are Interested in REST:
I'm doing some WCF work for a client, specifically around WS-Security. I stumbled upon the System.ServiceModel.MessageSecurityVersion class today. Its static properties alone should explain why developers are craving simpler technologies like REST...
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- WSSecurity10WSTrustFebruary2005WSSecureConversationFebruary2005WSSecurityPolicy11BasicSecurityProfile10
- WSSecurity11WSTrust13WSSecureConversation13WSSecurityPolicy12
- WSSecurity11WSTrust13WSSecureConversation13WSSecurityPolicy12BasicSecurityProfile10
- WSSecurity11WSTrustFebruary2005WSSecureConversationFebruary2005WSSecurityPolicy11
- WSSecurity11WSTrustFebruary2005WSSecureConversationFebruary2005WSSecurityPolicy11BasicSecurityProfile10
I think he's got a point there actually. Web services with WCF can be very easy to use, and it can be so very complex it'll get your head to spin. The REST and POX/POCO style of services is definitely getting more attention, even from within Microsoft. WCF now supports RESTful interfaces, and we've seen REST-related demos by well known Microsoft presenters several times now, especially around WCF, EF and Astoria/ADO.NET Data Service. Also, it's very easy to create a RESTful service with ASP.NET MVC. We saw several REST-related presentations at Mix07 and Mix08 and I'm sure there will be a lot of REST/POCO/POX/Atom demos at PDC later this year.
Ofcourse there will be a number of situations and type of applications which require a more complex protocol than what REST can offer, but as a developer and software architect who prefers simple solutions, I just love the simplicity of it all. Or maybe I'm just old and smilingly recognize old techniques coming back again - we did XML on (S)HTTP with ASP years and years ago, didn't we? And it worked pretty darn well I can tell you ;)
The "REST effect" is perhaps the result of the WS-* race, which in my opinion exceeded the speed limit a long time ago. It's just impossible for an average human beings to keep up with it unless you want to become a WCF/WS expert and do nothing much else, which is not an option for me. I know, there are people out there, like my colleague Eric, who groks it all, but he's not human ;)