This post is a bit late – in fact two months late, but what I want to tell you about is interesting enough, the goodness knows the topic remains relevant enough to warrant carrying on.  So here goes.

On April 17 was the third annual WS-REST Workshop, a WWW Conference workshop.  I didn’t attend the first one in Raleigh in 2010, but I did make it to Hyderabad for WS-REST 2011 (why go in my neck of the woods when I can go clear around the globe instead? 😉 ).  In 2011 I presented a paper on our XML REST Framework, which allows a developer to implement RESTful services using an XML technology stack, from persistence to model and controller, with the framework providing views with some Java implementations.  This framework remains relevant in the work we do in the corporate CTO office, we use it regularly in proof of concept implementations and everything we do in the Architecture Group is around Web and RESTful architectures.  We are even still getting interest from outside of EMC.  In our 2011 paper, we emphasized that our framework puts hyperlinking front and center, something that is missing from most of the popular REST frameworks today – i.e. CXF, Jersey, Spring MVC.  Sure, a developer can still craft their own hyperlinks, but without making it a first-class concern in the framework, it is often not addressed.

I do a lot of evangelism within EMC, and increasingly in broader circles, about what REST is and its importance, and while I think I’m making SOME headway, it still seems like the set of individuals who really get REST is still microscopic.  And what scares me the most is that with enterprise software moving to the cloud, REST has never, ever been more relevant in the circles I spend most of my time in. The paper I presented at the WS-REST workshop this year is an expanded version of my REST pitch.  I explain the fundamentals using the familiar World Wide Web as the example, and then I cover some of the mistakes often made in so called RESTful services.

But enough about my papers, what I want to share are my perspectives on the workshop overall.

While the workshop was super, the group that participated was talented and delightful, and there were some really good papers, I’m afraid that I came away a bit worried that, despite our efforts, the REST “community” isn’t getting enough traction.  First, overall I thought the program in 2011 overall was stronger than it was this year.  Last year we had a really great keynote from Stu Charlton – this year, none (I’m still looking forward to meeting some of my REST heroes like Jim Webber, Ian Robinson or Steven Tilkov at one of these things – come give us a keynote please 🙂 ).  There were slightly fewer papers (despite getting just as many submissions, I think).  Attendance was healthy but not overwhelming.  I was expecting quite the opposite – that with all the hype around the cloud that there would be many more papers and a larger group of interested participants. It’s absolutely the case that there are many competing sessions, even on the workshop days, at the WWW Conference, but I still think there is more we need to do as a community in terms of broadening interest.

But now let me move on to something that is very positive:

There was a section of the program that was called “REST and the Semantic Web” – this is a really good thing.  Last year one of my favorite papers was presented by Kevin Page, REST and Linked Data: a match made for domain driven development, where he summarized, “hey, these things are so closely related – why aren’t the two groups talking.”   This section of the program, which held my favorite paper of the workshop, Functional Descriptions as the Bridge between Hypermedia APIs and the Semantic Web, presented by Ruben Verborgh, is perhaps evidence of some progress.  Another activity that makes me optimistic is the formation of the Linked Data Platform Working Group at the W3C, with a charter that includes:

The mission of the Linked Data Platform (LDP) Working Group is to produce a W3C Recommendation for HTTP-based (RESTful) application integration patterns using read/write Linked Data.

This group was formed as a result of unanimous agreement from the participants of a W3C workshop on Linked Enterprise Data Patterns, held in December last year.  The WG is seeded with a member submission lead primarily by individuals from the Rational group within IBM.  The first meeting of the WG was just this last Monday, and active participants, particularly from industry, are very much being sought.