The ubiquitous of HTTP is indeed a definite point in its favor(as is its popularity and level of documentation). > GET and PUT are specified as being idempoten

The ubiquitous of HTTP is indeed a definite point in its favor(as is its popularity and level of documentation). > GET and PUT are specified as being idempotent, meaning it's safe to retry them. Entirely OT: Abstractly, yes, that's how they should be implemented, but they don't have to be and consequently it's entirely up to the receiving server whether they are or not. Which, in terms of assuming that someone will make unverified and bad assumptions, means that the implementer at some point will let them slip and become non-idempotent.