I was just scanning my latest copy of one of the very last independent software development magazines (independent as in "copy not subject to approval by vendors") and saw an article on REST. It seems intuitive to me that if you're a programming magazine today, you compete on clarity and authority. The article, in fact, was written by one of the magazine's contributing editors and I thought "Ah! A 1500 word overview of REST -- how valuable!"
Take a look at the core code of Listing 1:
protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp){
...
Employee emp = lookupUser(userSSID);
String medPlan = emp.getMedicalPlan();
String dntPlan = emp.getDentalPlan();
String retPlan = emp.getRetirementPlan();
Response = "User " + emp.getFullName()
+ " has medical plan: " + medPlan
+ ", and dental plan: " + dntPlan
+ ", and retirement plan: " + retPlan;
out.println(response)
>
Believe me, I understand that I have a lot of glass in the walls of my house, but it's a really big mistake to have a tutorial on REST that uses the HTTP POST verb to retrieve existing data. The use of HTTP verbs for distinct purposes is central to REST principles. The author seems to be unaware of this.
One reason I've not posted the name of the magazine is that, although this magazine is likely to have been in the hands of its many tens of thousands of subscribers for weeks, I've not heard the slightest ripple of outrage in the blogosphere and I'd like to see if that continues.
Obviously, this prominent magazine's feature article on an architectural topic of great interest and passion has gone unremarked. What does that mean? There's been a great deal of buzz lately about "whether alpha geeks have given up on Windows" but I find it even more disturbing to think that the alpha geeks have given up on ink on dead trees. Surely one of the roles of experts is to police the "mainstream media" and not simply to piss on each other about esoteric corner cases.
Or is it the case that this particular magazine has lost its credibility and that such a mistake is considered no more worth pointing out than the White House making an overly-optimistic prediction about Iraq?