By Roger Smith
 Some people are color-blind, others tone-deaf. I’ve never understood architecture,” says Sam Ruby, a director and VP of the Apache Software Foundation. “Try to tell me about kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Carnivora, suborder Caniformia, genus Canis, and my eyes glaze over.”
It’s an odd confession for a man who, with Leonard Richardson, co-authored the book RESTful Web Services (O’Reilly Media, 2007), making him one of the first to apply the REST design philosophy to Web services in a way that makes them work well in the context of the Web.
There are two types of Web services: big Web services use XML messages that follow the SOAP standard, and RESTful services, which have become increasingly popular with Internet companies because they integrate better with HTTP than SOAP services, and they don’t require XML messages or WSDL service API definitions.
Both types separate functions into distinct services that developers can make accessible over a network, where they can be combined and reused to create business applications. But the RESTful approach is a boon to companies looking to cut costs; instead of investing in expensive SOA initiatives, they can build Web-based ones that use content, Internet-delivered APIs, and lightweight RESTful services as a simpler alternative to heavyweight SOAP-based services. The shift to REST has exploded this past year with the rise of social networking and the integration of Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, Flickr, and MySpace across the Internet using REST-based services.
Ruby works as a senior technical staff member in IBM’s Emerging Technologies group and was recently appointed co-chair of W3C’s HTML Working Group. He’s quick to admit that there are times when a SOAP-based approach is best—such as when network independence is desired. But when you’re choosing between SOAP over HTTP versus REST over HTTP, there’s a growing consensus that REST is better—and that Ruby’s played a big part in demonstrating that.
l Paul Maritz l George Socha l Manjit Singh l Jeff Teper l Barack Obama l Nir Zuk l Kirill Sheynkman l Marc Benioff l Avi Kivity l HD Moore l
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