The one true REST explanation
I'm with him until he gets to "Hypermedia Controls", which strikes me as needless bureaucracy.<p>The 'link rel = "royalhope.nhs.uk/linkrels/slot/book"' element isn't really helping anything. Before you can consume that service, you need to know what "royalhope.nhs.uk/linkrels/slot/book" actually means, and if you already know that, then having it listed here in the response justs wastes space.<p>He's disguising a custom verb under a cloak of some sort of 'standardization' which isn't actually part of HTTP or any common web practice. The consumer of this service will need to know what all the verb URIs mean and precisely how to use them anyway, so listing them here doesn't provide any benefit and significantly complicates the communication.<p>In this way, the "Hypermedia Protocol" doesn't demonstrate any edge over old-school XML RPC.<p>Up until that point, I agreed with the article. Simple objects exposed using standard HTTP verbs is the way to go -- but I stop short of supporting random lists of verbs labeled with URIs as just more needless bureaucracy.