JAX-RS is not only about REST

I've been planning to post this 'philosophical' piece for a while.

The JAX-RS specification (Java API for RESTful services) has really got off the ground long time ago. JAX-RS 2.0 with its new brilliant features, with three JAX-RS 2.0 frameworks around (there will possibly be more, we never know), is and will further contribute to the popularity of JAX-RS.

JAX-RS 2.1 work will go ahead  soon enough and it will be another great specification, I've no doubt the spec leads will take care of making that happen, same way they did for 2.0  :-).

The central line of this blog though is that JAX-RS is actually not only about REST. It may sound like a shock to some people but the beauty of this specification is that it has completely re-opened the HTTP web service development space and will continue doing so for quite a few more years to come.

It's an important fact: developers always want to do something new, even though it's a fact that existing Web service technologies has proven to be able to deliver: many many people have written SOAP endpoints that work, many many people have designed endpoints according to REST style, the WEB rules. But REST is not the end of the web services road, it is only a set of proven rules.

We all know many JAX-RS endpoints are not necessarily that RESTful, in a a nutshell they support simple HTTP endpoints, often with 2 HTTP verbs only max - and it is absolutely OK: JAX-RS does and will help no matter how far one would like to go in their HTTP endpoint design.