GET is the real differentiator

It's been few months since I actually read the posts from the blogs I follow. On Monday I got the chance and I was not disappointed at all :-). A lot of interesting stuff as usual from the likes of Bill D'Ora, etc, etc. Since I started reading the Bill's blog first, I immediately spotted what is it that I can't help avoiding commenting upon.

Bill says in his feedback to a Tim Bray's Name-Value Pairs post, when explaining POST vs PUT differences : "The pro-REST answer is to use PUT". Now, there's more context in Bill's post, but this statement which finally sent a message to me, though may be not the intended one.

I'd rephrase this phrase like this : "The HTTP Programmer's answer is to use PUT (in certain conditions)". This is what it is. REST is not about stating that PUT has to be used, rather it's an interface design question for a given HTTP service resource whether it's PUT or POST which is used. I think it only adds to the confusion as to what REST is about when people say the RESTful way is to do PUT and DELETE as opposed to say doing updates with POST.

After reading Tim Bray's post I found another interesting one. I don't think REST practitioners will start switching to just GET and POST. But it's good to see some clarifications in this area from the experts.

I browsed through some of my old posts, here're some related ones :
My Simple WEB and One For Reads Many For Writes