Sanjiva writes about how he was corrected that Google maps are RESTful, i.e. they use URIs for each map segment. He gives an example of http://kh3.google.com/kh?n=404&v=14&t=tqstqrtqqttqqsqqrsrr, calls it "lovely" and asks whether there's any meaning to it.
I fairly quickly guessed that "qrst" are the quadrants of a rectangle. You can check that by adding 'q', 'r', 's', 't' to http://kh3.google.com/kh?n=404&v=14&t=t . And it works recursively, as long as Google has a useful resolution.
Does it make the URI more RESTful, if it now makes sense? In general, what makes a URI restful? Why is http://jacek.cz/blog/ more restful than the map URI above? Just because it's more readable? How about http://www.dalnice.com/d/d01/d01.htm - makes sense to me, but it's Czech-specific.
AFAIK, REST doesn't say how to create URIs, it just says that they can be used for linking. HTML gives the client a way to create URIs with a GET form, but also with Javascript, which can form the map URIs very easily, including the URI for the segment next to the one at hand etc.
I probably just don't understand what Sanjiva understands under RESTful URIs.
Posted at 1626 on Thu, Feb 22, 2007 in category Work | TrackBack | Comments feedNice decryption! I don't follow Sanjiva's thinking at all. Which worries me 'cos he's really smart :)
Posted by: Paul Downey at February 22, 2007 8:05 PM