Tuesday, November 26, 2002

REST, an alternative to SOAP Hopefully, everyone knows what these acronyms stand for: SOAP = Simple Object Access Protocol REST = REpresentational State Transfer First, SOAP is a protocol while REST is an architecture concept for using URIs to access web services. Now, I use SOAP and like it, but it is not always so convenient. A case in point: Amazon offers both SOAP and what they call "XML over HTTP" interfaces to their web services. Their "XML over HTTP" is, in essense, REST. Their "XML over HTTP" is extremely easy to use from any programming language - no SOAP libraries are required: just do a HTTP GET with a URI for the service query, and parse the returned XML document. When using REST to make an RPC type call to a web service, both the method name and arguments are encoded in the URI. To me, this seems very much more tidy (as well as simpler to use!) that building a SOAP request envelope, etc. 11:39:59 AM

My previous bosses hit it big! A tip of the hat to my old bosses at Angel Studios! My Dad just sent me an article from the San Diego Union about Angel Studios selling themselves (but they will still be a fairly autonomous game developer) to Take Two, the developers of the game series. I spent a really fun 18 months at Angel Studios (working on 2 Nintendo U64 games, a VR thing for Disney, and a Hovercraft PC game) before my wife and I packed up and moved to the mountains of Northern Arizona. Anyway guys, well done! 10:18:59 AM

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