YourMinis.com is another example of how the ECMAScript platform together with XML over HTTP can be used to do great stuff. I am running the RTM version of Vista and IE 7.0 so I don't know if this site works with all browsers but it's really fast on my machine and very impressive. Good looking too.
Now, this has NOTHING to do with REST!!! My user agent (my browser) shows no state transitions and there are no links from one resource state to the other. I see no URIs associated with the state of my browser after I change the displayed state. I see no identifiable resources. I see no indication of a hypermedia application.
The application hosted in my browser has all to do with the power of HTTP as an ubiquitous, well-supported application protocol, a universal scripting language, XML/JSON/Atom/RSS/SOAP/etc as a way to capture/transfer data, the browser and the common platform functionality offered by all of the browser flavors out there as the execution platform.
This is a great illustation of the power of the Web even though it has little to do with the architectural style called REST! Please, please, please stop the buzzword madness and perhaps consider reading Fielding's thesis 🙂
I am sure there are many more examples in this space but I just came across YourMinis.com and I thought of sharing few thoughts.
UPDATE: Oooops!!! I am really embarrassed 🙁 Paul is absolutely right in his comment. This is indeed a Flash application and not an ECMAScript one. The comments still apply though. It's just a different hosting technology.
4 responses to “Great AJAX application != REST application”
Cool app. As with so many other AJAX apps though (not all, of course), it could be improved by being more RESTful. Consider that one can’t currently;
– get the “desktop” in a useful state, and get a link for it so I can send it to somebody else
– have the contents of selected windows indexed by search engines
– add a “mini” developed and hosted by a third party (AFAICT – and if they did it, it would need a URI)
It’s currently *very* monolithic from a network integration POV. Useful, but not nearly as useful as it could be.
P.S. at least you can add RSS feeds, which requires URIs. That’s a start.
I may be missing something here, but isn’t this site just a Macromedia Flash application?
Actually, Action Script, the scripting language used in Macromedia/Adobe Flash, is an implementation (and extension) of ECMAScript. So the original statement about the power of ECMAScript is correct, although Flash does have some custom extensions that other ECMAScript implementations don’t have.
This 100% Flash.
Action script was initially based on ECMAScript but is far from even similar now.
No way anyone can say that this site is ECMAScript.
And about the update. It is not just a different hosting technology. Its also a different development environment that also requires a plug in in order to be viewed. Its is totally different.