digesting roy fielding on REST

2007-09-18 @ 23:56#

i've been reviewing the slides that roy fielding presented at the rails conference in berlin this week. interesting stuff. first, i'm impressed that he linked to the architects sketch. of course, the rest of the slide deck is pretty awesome, too[grin].

lots of good stuff here, but one of the most interesting slides is the one that sums up his view of the meaning of "Web Architectural Style":

Web Architectural Style

  • One abstraction level above Architecture
    • two abstraction levels above implementation
    • that’s one too many for most folks
  • An architectural style is a set of constraints
    • unfortunately, constraints are hard to visualize
      • kind of like gravity or electromagnetism
      • observed only by their effect on others
  • Constraints induce architectural properties
    • both desirable and undesirable properties
      • a.k.a., software qualities
      • a.k.a., design trade-offs

it's well worth reviewing the entire deck. i'm hoping there's a video to go with this talk sometime soon, too.

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