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I've been hearing a lot about the merits of REST over the deficiencies of RPC lately. For example, the latest blog entries from RPC-hero-turned-REST-advocate Steve Vinoski.

While it's fun to listen to famous people debate the issues, I've always had the impression that REST is something that is not as concrete as RPC. In Java, for example, If I want to do RPC, I have several different tools that I can use right there in the JDK: one is RMI, the other is Java IDL (not that I'll recommend it).

That leads to todays question:

Q: How the bleep do you get started with doing REST with Java?

(I know you are going to wave your hands every which way and utter phrases like "uniform interface" or "hypermedia as the engine of application state" or "internet scale" or "small joins, loosely parted".)

Q: Show me! (Send a string "Howdy" from host A to host B the REST way.)

No peeking at the internet or the REST book. Just write the demo.