Subject: [hybi] Introduction to RestMS

From: Pieter Hintjens <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 20:35:40 +0200

Hi Folks,

We may be able to offer some insights into the wire protocol level,
with RestMS[1], and possibly also with AMQP[2], which was one of its
ancestors.

RestMS is a XML-or-JSON-over-REST-over-HTTP protocol that does
asynchronous messaging.  I've written an introduction to RestMS[3]
that explains the idea.  We've been working on the basis of running
code / spec iterations, we're now at the third cycle or so.

Anyhow for HyBi what may be relevant (I've just joined this list so
please forgive my ignorance, the list archives seem incomplete) are
the asynchronous mechanisms:

- asynchronous retrieval using a mechanism we call an "asynclet",
where the server provides a URI for a resource that does not yet
exist, the client retrieves this URI and the server responds when the
resource exists (=arrives, since it's a message)
- asynchronous retrieval of modifications using the
When-Modified-After and When-None-Match headers.  We took the first
from Comet, and added the second to be consistent with conditional
methods.

Cheers,
--
Pieter Hintjens

[1] http://www.restms.org
[2] http://www.amqp.org
[3] http://www.zyre.com/blog:intro-to-restms