This essay claims to rebut some things I've written. Actually it knocks down some strawmen. Dave admits he didn't even read the most recent article (the one he linked to). He just skimmed it. I consider it quite disrespectful to "rebut" something you haven't read. I make technical points in that article and a rebuttal would address those points.
Here is my rebuttal to the "rebuttal":
Prescod is an advocate of a philosophy called REST, which suggests that there is a single correct way to expose XML-based services over the Internet.
I don't think anybody has said that. In fact, the article cited contains this statement:
Now your application may have different requirements than Google's so the analysis may be quite different. HTTP is not necessarily better than SOAP-RPC for every application in the world. In my experience, however, the HTTP solution is better for any project where a public (as opposed to individual or departmental) interface is needed for a service.
Furthermore, I've never said that REST is the "only way". I've said that REST is the better way...when compared to RPC, for services that need to scale, evolve and be integrated with other services. Most SOAP advocates agree that an XML-centric view is more scalable and evolvable than an RPC-view. Unfortunately an interoperable, non-RPC way of using SOAP is not well articulated in the specification so it is hard to compare REST to it.
Dave: I'll concede that anything you could do with XML-RPC or SOAP could also be done with REST.
I'm waiting for you to either concede or disprove is that there are some concrete additional benefits that you get from REST that you do not with RPC. Once you acknowledge this then we can have a meaningful discussion on when RPC is the best solution and when REST is. But until you do, we keep going around in circles every other month. You say: "the RPC version is as good as the REST version." Then I disprove that. Then you say: "but in some circumstances the RPC version might be better" and I acknowledge that. And then we start the conversation at the same place again the next time. If you care about technology then let's talk about when one strategy is a better technological choice then the other.
I apologize for making the debate somewhat personal, Dave. But every time the REST debate comes up, you jump in without feeling the need to learn anything new or evolve your position. Most others can debate the issue and come out on the other side either with agreement or at least with some new technical ideas but you seem to resist that. I feel that we will have the same conversation three months from now. This lack of progress is very frustrating. I feel it stems not from a real inability to understand the issues but from your personal relation to the XML-RPC and SOAP technologies.
Dave says: If Google were to redesign their interface to please a few people would be a waste of resources.
Google started with a REST+XML interface a year ago and a REST+HTML interface three or four years ago. Rather than document or publicize their work of a year ago, they took it pay-only, then redesigned it to be SOAP-based and did a big press release. That was a waste both of resources and of momentum. Furthermore, Google has no idea how many people they would make happy with an XML-based interface because the XML community has not had an opportunity to try to build such an interface into applications. Meerkat arose organically from the existence of HTTP-fetchable XML. Nobody planned it when they started putting those XML files on the Web.
Dave says: SOAP is, as Prescod acknowledges, a juggernaut. It's better, imho, to accept that it's here, above all the objections that have been raised.
Why would we ever consider technical issues when we could just go with the flow and follow Microsoft? I guess that the rest of us can just turn off our brains and wait for Microsoft to bless technologies. I personally refuse to succumb either to the oligopoly or "Neilson ratings" theories of technology. There are real, technical differences and those differences matter.