RESTful web service tutorial?

[Bil Kleb]

carmen wrote:
>
> i still don't know exactly what REST is (maybe there is no exact definition),

I suppose the definitive source is one of the few PhD dissertations
that are worth something (mine wasn't):

  http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm

> camping makes playing with all this easy

That was my hypothesis, nice to have confirmation...

> module Aero::Controllers
>   class Foil < R '/foil/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)'
>     def get geo, angle, mach
>       # do some math here and return results
>     end
>   end
>
> [..]
>
> you would do something like GET /foil/1/90.000/3 in this case,
> 
> or perhaps query string is more your type:
> 
>    GET /foil?mach=3&angle=37.000

Simple enough, thanks.

> [..]
>
> this gives you an overview of 1 old fashioned (querystring) 1 camping-fashioned
> (custom URIs defined via regex) and 1 neo-classical (JSON RPC via post) means
> to REST while camping. [..]

You lost me with most of this, as I am not a hard-core web programmer,
but it is comforting to see the similarities in the different tacks.

Thanks again,
--
Bil Kleb
http://fun3d.larc.nasa.gov