There are two big ideas in REST. First one is in realm of system engineering, and second one in the realm of programming paradigms.
Using HTTP[S] protocol allows you to pass through almost every heterogeneous network. That means any highly restricted and protected (I prefer the term 'misconfigured') network of a cell phone provider, who blocks everything else, but http.
You can survive in that crazy hotel's or airport's wi-fi network, especially located in developing countries, which is a mess of cheap Chinese ADSL-modems and no-name Wi-Fi access-points with settings no one cares about.
It also means that you can pass through all these almost useless corporate firewalls made by idiots (why firewall if you have all those windows with IE6 boxes running by users with admin rights?).
The second big thing is about statelessness and using URI as a namespace - representing data as a file-system hierarchy and using one standard protocol everywhere - it is almost the same ideas which lays on the foundation of this enlightening Plan9 system. No xml, no BS, just names and simple standard protocol - 9P.
Together, those two ideas are enough to forget about all that proprietary crap, not because it is proprietary, but because REST is more general, flexible and easy to implement concept.
Using HTTP[S] protocol allows you to pass through almost every heterogeneous network. That means any highly restricted and protected (I prefer the term 'misconfigured') network of a cell phone provider, who blocks everything else, but http.
You can survive in that crazy hotel's or airport's wi-fi network, especially located in developing countries, which is a mess of cheap Chinese ADSL-modems and no-name Wi-Fi access-points with settings no one cares about.
It also means that you can pass through all these almost useless corporate firewalls made by idiots (why firewall if you have all those windows with IE6 boxes running by users with admin rights?).
The second big thing is about statelessness and using URI as a namespace - representing data as a file-system hierarchy and using one standard protocol everywhere - it is almost the same ideas which lays on the foundation of this enlightening Plan9 system. No xml, no BS, just names and simple standard protocol - 9P.
Together, those two ideas are enough to forget about all that proprietary crap, not because it is proprietary, but because REST is more general, flexible and easy to implement concept.