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Adding un-necessary VERBS adds complexity that imposes additional knowledge and burden that increases the surface area that web servers, server software, interm
by mythz 13y ago
Adding un-necessary VERBS adds complexity that imposes additional knowledge and burden that increases the surface area that web servers, server software, intermediaries, HTTP Clients, client libraries, browsers, etc need to know in order to support it.
What are the call-semantics of the new VERB? Will it be widely used correctly and can we even rely on the spec'ed definition? There's no value adding new VERBs that have the same semantics as POST but just has additional metadata to indicate what the action is. Lessons from WS-* should be not to try add specifications and written unified/concepts for everything but to keep a simple and minimal but flexible specification, that most APIs can operate within.
- jared314 13y agoAdding unnecessary verbs to the standard does create problems, but having a few standard verbs and controlled customization is fantastic. The trouble with custom verbs, like you touched on, is the inability to advertise their contract. I would argue that the OPTIONS verb does not give back enough information to make it useful. Either the OPTIONS verb needs to return more information, or an additional verb should be standardized to allow for discovery and use. The level of specification is a good debate to have, because WS-* was to much specification and REST is almost too little.