Reading that old thread really makes me realise how perceptions have changed over time. I think more folks understand how useful REST can be, as it provides a standard set of semantics for talking about resources, and that semantics are pretty widely applicable across various situations.<p>In that respect, REST is a lot like relational calculus: certainly not a panacea, certainly not universally-applicable, but an extremely useful way to approach a large number of different problems. And just as one should have to justify why one is <i>not</i> using an RDBMS (and there are a huge number of reasons not to!), one should need to think hard before abandoning REST for RPC.