Some have claimed that REST has an Achilles heel as regards extensibility. This page is an attempt to summarize the many ways in which (5BI)
Fielding's dissertation goes into this in great detail but apparently this isn't called out enough... (5BJ)
- new verbs (as Web DAV has added to HTTP) (5BK)
- additional HTTP headers (e.g. Google's Cache control headers) (5BL)
- mobile code can be used (even if things like Java on the client were overhyped) that's built in extensibility (Java, ActiveX?, JavaScript are the current mobile code standards allowing engines that evolve to be applied on user agents (5BM)
The most important extensibility feature of the REST style is the forth plank of REST: hypermedia as that engine of application state) namely: (5BN)
- an evolving set of hypermedia standards (file formats that are used to exchange representations things like eXtensible Markup language XML) (5BO)