This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz
by David Heinemeier Hansson.
Original Post: Google: Recall, Developers: Improve
Feed Title: Loud Thinking
Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LoudThinking
Feed Description: All about the full-stack, web-framework Rails for Ruby and on putting it to good effect with Basecamp
As I'm making the trip from Copenhagen to Chicago (and then on to San Francisco), I thought it prudent to take an airborne view of the latest bruhaha over Google's Accelerator. Yes, specifications such as the HTTP are important. Yes, POSTs are a better way of modifying data than GETs. We should all move in that direction. Backpack made the switch yesterday.
That being said, there's a reason why GETs was used in the first place. Just like tables were mis/used for styling, people will route around specs that doesn't allow them to do what they need to do. HTML is not a particularly friendly place to implement a RESTful interface, so people find other ways. Bend the rules to Get Stuff Done.
But standards improve. The table-based design have fallen from grace due to the strong support of CSS now available. When there's a better way available, most people will eventually follow it. But the switch doesn't happen over night. And it certainly doesn't happen because Google or RESTful purists would like it to. That's just not the way these things go.
So. Google: Recall the accelerator. Make it do no more damage in that real, imperfect world we're living in. Application developers: Let's route around the lack of support in HTML for a RESTful interface the best way that we can.
Rails will ship its next version with a link_to that looks just like a GET, but uses Javascript, or some other way, to do a POST. Since the HTML isn't moving forward, we'll just have to build on top and make it no harder than not to. We're doing that with Ajax, we can do it with REST.
(Just in case you didn't get the implicit message at the top. This message was posted from some 30K feet in the air while onboard the SAS SK943. $30 for an entire flights worth of 30-60kb/s satellite connection. Oh my, it's sweet.)
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