Re: PROV-ISSUE-432 (post-or-get): Is http get the correct form for the provenance service [Accessing and Querying Provenance]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Provenance Working Group Issue Tracker <
sysbot+tracker@w3.org> wrote:

> PROV-ISSUE-432 (post-or-get): Is http get the correct form for the
> provenance service [Accessing and Querying Provenance]
>
> http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/432
>
> Raised by: Paul Groth
> On product: Accessing and Querying Provenance
>
> According to REST principles one should not create side-effects when using
> GET. The question is does this apply to provenance-service.
>
> Also, should POST be supported as well as GET in the provenance service.
>

To start: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/630453/put-vs-post-in-rest

GETs should never have side effects. GET is only used for access. POST is
to perform an operation (I prefer them to be idempotent, as in SADI, but
that's not a REST requirement). Updates and deletes should be handled via
UPDATE and DELETE respectively. Our users will be far less confused if we
keep these separate.

Using GET only for access and PUT'ting, UPDATE'ing, and DELETE'ing (with
the option of auth, of course) against that URL is also much kinder to
linked data.

Jim
-- 
Jim McCusker
Programmer Analyst
Krauthammer Lab, Pathology Informatics
Yale School of Medicine
james.mccusker@yale.edu | (203) 785-6330
http://krauthammerlab.med.yale.edu

PhD Student
Tetherless World Constellation
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
mccusj@cs.rpi.edu
http://tw.rpi.edu