Re: issue: SOAP requirements

[Tim Bray <Tim.Bray@xxxxxxx>]

On Mar 16, 2005, at 11:56 PM, James M Snell wrote:

> <devils advocate hat on>
> That's an argument to use POST for everything; not an argument that 
> justifies making the use of SOAP optional in the spec.  We can HTTP 
> POST  non-SOAP-enveloped <atom:feed /> and <atom:entry /> elements and 
> still achieve the goal.  Sure, you'd still need a way of expressing 
> the verb, but that could be done in other ways, such as a querystring 
> parameter or an HTTP header.  Why is it necessary to wrap things in a 
> SOAP envelope just to express a verb?  Or are there other reasons to 
> pull in SOAP?

I advanced more or less exactly those arguments, in my original model 
of a "RESTful Atom API", but Joe and others argued passionately that 
doing without PUT and DELETE wasn't REST and was sup-optimal.

My view is that shipping a protocol that can't be used by the hundreds 
of millions (and that number is growing insanely fast) of basic 
javaphones is totally out of the question, and if the SOAP dodge 
enables that, that's a liveable compromise. -Tim