Posts tagged: rest
The opportunistic developer is allergic to soap
For some time now I've been thinking about what I think of as the ascendency of the opportunistic developer in web application development. The phrase has unfortunate connotations for those who remember the 'personas' meme from some years ago when it was revealed that Microsoft had characterised three type of developer for three of its software development products. [ 1] and [ 2]. This post is not directly related to these archetypes (the opportunistic developer was called 'Mort' in the meme, a name which has become derogatory). [continues...]
Paul Walk , June 9, 2008
Paul Walk
Tagged with: web-tech, rest, programming
A minor response to Repositories thru the looking glass
In Repositories thru the looking glass over on the eFoundations blog, Andy Powell gives a summary of a keynote he gave to the Vala Conference last week. It's interesting stuff, and I will take the time to look at the presentation slides as well. I mostly agree (vehemently in some instances) with Andy's points, though I do find myself questioning some parts of this, so I'll quote some snippets and make a few comments here. [continues...]
Paul Walk , February 14, 2008
Tagged with: open-access, repositories, rest, schol-comms
Not a unicorn, nor Switzerland neither
I've just listened to a podcast of David Heinemeier Hansson's keynote at RailsConf 2007 (which actually took place back in May of this year). David describes the changes and new features being introduced into Rails 2.0. Firstly, he is at pains to point out that Rails 2.0 will not represent a radical change, or a complete re-write. Also, 95% of what will constitute Rails 2.0's new features are already available in the bleeding edge EdgeRails and are being actively used. [continues...]
The 38th parallel
On the subject of the e-Framework for Education and Research, Andy Powell, in eFoundations, asks: ...does the e-Framework support the Web (again, read Web 2.0 if you like) mindset, does it fight against it, or is it neutral? Although the e-Framework is careful to position itself as technology-neutral it is, nonetheless, somewhat associated with WS-* in some quarters. This may be partly because the e-Framework was born partly out of a perceived need for our communities to engage with SOA. [continues...]
RESTing easy…
Joe Gregorio offers a detailed example of 'RESTifying' an existing, complex application. His post concentrates on dealing with 'collections' in particular. My experience with applying a REST approach to web application design is that it has worked well with some simple applications, but I have tended to shy away from this approach for more complex solutions, believing that the effort of 'constraining' such applications into the REST approach might outweigh the benefits. [continues...]
Accessible (& programmable) UK Train Timetables
Matthew Somerville has created a great web application called Accessible UK Train Timetables. For 'accessible' read programmable, so that having completed the search form, the resulting page's URL is useable in another web application in a RESTian way. for example, my search for early morning trains from London to Bath gives me the following URL: http://traintimes.org.uk/london%20paddington/bath%20spa/07:30/
Paul Walk , March 4, 2007
Tagged with: web-tech, rest, programming
Rest protocol advice
{10 things to change in your thinking when building REST XML Protocols}(http://web.archive.org/web/20060629003823/http://www.xmldatabases.org/WK/blog/2287_10_things_to_change_in_your_thinking_when_building_REST_XML_Protocols.item) by Kimbro Staken. Kimbro’s work on XML databases was a real influence on XCRI developments, so this is food for thought. This was previously published at http://blog.sockdrawer.org and was retrieved from the Internet Archive.
Paul Walk , June 17, 2006
Tagged with: web-tech, rest, programming
REST application design checklist
Joe Gregorio lays out a simple process for designing a REST application. I’ve been doing a lot of this kind of design and development lately, but I still found that this piece clarified my thinking. In a nutshell, Joe’s process is: To build a good REST service you need to answer the following questions: What are the URIs? What’s the format? What methods are supported at each URI? What status codes could be returned? [continues...]
Paul Walk , March 31, 2006
Tagged with: web-tech, rest, programming
Ad hoc integration of Web Services
"The Unix idea of piecing together solutions from reusable parts has morphed into XML-based, service-oriented architecture. This time around, though, it's all happening on the Web, in an environment where everybody can compose simple and popular tunes. When technologists forget that, I hope users will administer the dope slap we deserve." Jon Udell on XML.com This resonated with me. Recently, as part of my work at a London University, I re-engineered a legacy enterprise-wide web application called MISLine, moving it from a straightforward ColdFusion app into a set of Java Beans / servlets / JSPs and deploying it in a J2EE cluster. [continues...]
Paul Walk , March 19, 2004
Tagged with: web-tech, java, rest, programming