Three years ago, after reading about XML, XSLT,
XLink etc. I had similar sorts of ideas. Since
then I've been working with J2EE and EJB and it's
good to contrast to two. Fundamentally REST is
a declarative model and distributed objects are
procedural. REST is relatively simple, distributed
object require complex application servers (if
you want to do them right).
In my work I can't imagine a customer asking for
a REST solution, simply because everyone likes
to think their problems are so complex that they
need the heavy engineering a distributed object
solution provides. Coming from the other direction
I don't think many software architects would
suggest a REST solution because it's declarative
and doesn't fit in with the way they like to
think.
Don't get me wrong: I think a REST solution will
be better in most cases. Even when object
technology is needed it might be best limited
to individual nodes in the system. I'd bet that
many REST solutions in corporate settings are
the result of skunk projects where people can
get things done without asking for approval.
SOAP/WSDL/UDDI are a step in the right direction
with regards to commodotizing object technology
and encouraging interoperability, but the whole
name "web services" is slightly dishonest when
really SOAP is CORBA by another name.
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