> It's all marketing and popularity contests, and SOAP/XML/XSD lost out. I believe the triumph of REST over SOAP was mainly piggy-backed off of the triumph of

> It's all marketing and popularity contests, and SOAP/XML/XSD lost out. I believe the triumph of REST over SOAP was mainly piggy-backed off of the triumph of JSON over XML (even though neither has technically anything to do with REST). In practice, in most people's minds, REST == JSON and SOAP == XML and JSON > XML. Therefore REST > SOAP. Though as you note, what most people today call REST falls way short of the whole singing and dancing HATEOAS bag that Roy had in mind. (Personally I think hypermedia is way overrated for most APIs, though that's not an opinion many REST zealots are open to).