We might be getting close to this point: Maybe we should just give up on the term REST, since it’s become so diluted as to mean nothing more than “HTTP API that’s not as hard to use as SOAP”?
This is a shame, because RESTful APIs are (for me, anyway) usually a joy to build and to use.
There's already a specific term for the kind of API that rdio has: RPC. Remote Procedure Call.
I mean, come on, how can you say you have REST (with R standing for Representational) if you have section called “Methods” in your API documentation. HTTP API sounds okay, but in fact their API is not even HTTP specific (actually, it abuses HTTP).
> We might be getting close to this point: Maybe we should just give up on the term REST, since it’s become so diluted as to mean nothing more than “HTTP API that’s not as hard to use as SOAP”?
Well except RDIO's API is not any simpler to use than SOAP.
It's RPC to and through, let's call a procedure call a procedure call.
This is a shame, because RESTful APIs are (for me, anyway) usually a joy to build and to use.