To REST Or Not To REST...
Assaf Arkin is right, and I stand corrected. SimpleDB ain’t RESTful. Hell, it’s not really even GETSful. But it sure sounds nice when they put it in the marketing literature. Sigh.
From Subbu’s blog: “The technology powering SimpleDB is definitely impressive [..] However, as a REST API, it is a disappointment. The API failed (a) to identify resources, and (b) to specify operations on resources in a RESTful way. It uses a single verb GET to create, delete, update, or get data from the store.”
In any case, Assaf whipped up DeHorrible, a Rails proxy that appropriately RESTifies (GETStifies) SimpleDB. lol.
I’m still psyched about the SimpleDB announcement, and looking forward to trying it out, but I really wish Amazon would clean up their supposedly RESTful APIs. Yes, I’m looking at you, Flexible Payments.
Is it really that hard?