REST vs WEB APIs

[Robert_Wilson]

We currently have a GUI application but are starting to look into upgrading this to a web-based application that will use PASOE. I've been reading about which API is best to use for this purpose and the obvious choices are either REST or WEB. REST seems like it might be best for us but looking at this article from progress they mention scalability issues with REST APIs and recommend using a WEB API instead.

Is there any more information on why WEB is recommended by Progress? I'm obviously going to take their recommendation seriously but would like to read a bit more into the scalability issues before starting this project.

Any information is helpful so thanks in advance!

 

[Jean-Christophe Cardot]

Hi
We implemented a web app using a rest/json API, starting with the PASOE REST adapter.
Then we hit limits and had to switch to Webhandlers, so I would suggest you to rather use those.
At the end, we had no time redevelopping the whole API with WEB, so we used a URL rewriter (in PASOE's Tomcat) to direct some of the API to the REST adapter and some to WEB handlers, so from the outside it looks consistent, but internally we use both adapters.
The limits are that out of the box you can only do Rest/Json. No other content type is allowed (e.g. txt, csv, xml, etc.) - we are doing it but this is a cheat (direct modification of the xml files produced by PDSOE) and I would not recommend it.
Also you cannot use the REST adapter to provide binary content (e.g. the picture of an article, or a spreadsheet report, etc.).
Thanks to the URL rewrite we still use the REST adapter for simple REST Json APIs, because at the end they are a little simpler to implement.
HTH!
JC

 

[Robert_Wilson]

Hi JC,

Thanks for that insight, it's exactly what I was looking for. Appreciate your input.

Our application currently would work fine with just Json but we also have a built in reporting suite so looking to the future it would be nice to be able to transport these files directly without having to build the data in Json and try to rebuild it on the front-end.

Based on your experience I'll be recommending we move forward with the Webhandlers over REST.

Thanks,
Robert.

 

[peterjudge]

In addition to what @Jean-Christophe Cardot said, using the web transport/web handlers is SIGNIFICANTLY easier for developers
- You can write them in any editor you choose. Rest is tightly tied to a PDSOE project
- You can consume and produce non-JSON payloads simply - without hacking XML
- Deployment of services becomes much much much simpler IMO
- Debugging is simpler because it's all ABL. Or nearly all, where REST uses a thicket of nested XML files, and a lot is done by the java parts of PASOE

 

[Robert_Wilson]

Thanks Peter for expanding on this. It would be fair to say that Webhandlers are just simply better than REST

 

[peterjudge]

Thanks Peter for expanding on this. It would be fair to say that Webhandlers are just simply better than REST

IMO definitely.