Betamax in an SOW(orld)

I posted about how WS-* “stacks” up against REST in my link posts. Just had an opportunity to comment on it. I really like the arguments presented in favor of “not dumping” WS-*, eloquent even I might add, but none to say why WS-* trumps over REST. WS-* does stack up quite well compared to REST. Theoretically WS-* is certainly got its strenghts in the enterprise especially large enterprises where REST doesnt have too many formal stories surrounding orchestration, service registries, BAM etc. One could argue that such requirements may not matter, but it would be hard to convince the business otherwise.

On the other side of the argument, which I think is really the key, that REST has going for it is… Adoption! What Steve Vinoski terms “Serendipitous reuse“. Developing RESTful applications is agile and allows for iterative development; to a large extent interactive even. It presents a low barrier of entry in terms of skills, courtesy uniform interfaces; and the killer feature of it all “freeing the data” from the shackles of specialized interfaces (more on that in another post)! Somehow I get the feeling WS-* might become the betamax of the SOA world!