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A comment on REST is not perfect for everything.

Re:REST is not perfect for everything by oh_ryan on Monday April 27, 2009 @07:08PM (#582285)
Why do client-directed messages work poorly with REST?

If there are any other helpful links on REST implementation, particularly working with legacy systems who are not already RESTful, that would be helpful for my start-up.

Otherwise, i'll just keep googling. thanks!

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Re:REST is not perfect for everything by ownedthx on Monday April 27, 2009 @07:35PM (#582316)
The reason is simple: REST forbids a server being aware of client state. So practically, this means sessions are off limits; cookies for managing sessions are meaningless in such a world.

To send an event to a client, though, means the server must have some sort of awareness of the client. Otherwise, it wouldn't know to send the client a message in the first place.

So, can you have events in conjunction with REST? Sure. Just realize once you do that, your application isn't 100% RESTful. It's RESTful and... RESTless I guess :)

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