The Insider News

Code rant[^]:

The internet is ablaze with an out of control REST flame war. It seems that many people think there’s a REST protocol when in fact there’s no such thing. Looking for a protocol in Roy Fielding’s dissertation will get you nowhere because it’s an academic paper describing an architectural style, there’s no protocol to be had. The only contribution Mr Fielding makes to the debate is to tell almost anyone who describes their API as RESTful, that it is not.

BitNative[^]:

It’s been over a decade since Roy Fielding wrote his seminal dissertation on Representation State Transfer (REST). Over this period we’ve seen SOAP/WSDL fall out of favor as the cool kids transition their services over to the REST paradigm. Or so it seems on the surface. In reality, we’ve spent the last 10 years building various ad-hoc services over HTTP that borrow bits and pieces from the grand vision that Roy outlined. We’ve settled into a rhythm that, depending on your outlook, is either a naive implementation or an enlightened massaging of the initial approach. Is the glass half empty, or half full?

Monday Note[^]:

Once upon a time, Steve Ballmer blasted Apple for asking its customers to pay $500 for an Apple logo. This was the “Apple Tax“, the price difference between the solid, professional workmanship of a laptop running on Windows, and Apple’s needlessly elegant MacBooks. Following last week’s verdict against Samsung, the kommentariat have raised the specter of an egregious new Apple Tax, one that Apple will levy on other smartphone makers who will have no choice but to pass the burden on to you.

Betanews[^]:

A lot of people are on the fence when it comes to Microsoft’s forthcoming OS. The Modern (formerly Metro) UI has made some previously enthusiastic Windows devotees reluctant to upgrade and, to be fair, it’s easy to understand why. But there’s much more to Windows 8 than just its touch-friendly but slightly clunky Start screen. If you’ve yet to make up your mind about upgrading, maybe some of these new features will sway you.

Input Output[^]:

Magnetic tape was common for storage in pre-personal computing days, but it had two main annoyances: it held tiny amounts of data, and it was slower than a slug on a cold spring morning. There had to be something better, for those of us excited about technology. And there was: the floppy disk.

Hal's (Im)Perfect Vision[^]:

Bill Gates would be the first to point out all the cases where Microsoft’s competitors made a key mistake that let Microsoft succeed. Office is perhaps the most notable example, where competitors’ reluctance to support Microsoft Windows took Word and Excel from second-tier status to leadership as customers shifted from DOS to Windows.... That is why Microsoft historically keeps the pressure up even when its cause looks hopeless.

MarketWatch[^]:

Many of us will accumulate vast libraries of digital books and music over the course of our lifetimes. But when we die, our collections of words and music may expire with us. Part of the problem is that with digital content, one doesn’t have the same rights as with print books and CDs. Customers own a license to use the digital files—but they don’t actually own them.