When using a SOAP endpoint, a developer could reference the SOAP wsdl endpoint and outsystems will read the WSDL xml description and generate all the required proxy methods automatically.

What about REST? would it be good idea to support WADL (Web Application Description Language)? WADL is basically the equivalent of WSDL for REST services. 

A consumer application would reference the WADL endpoint and like SOAP/WSDL outsystems will read the WADL xml description and generate all the required proxy methods automatically.


Reference: http://www.w3.org/Submission/wadl/

Is this really a good idea? I still have some concerns about using WADL, since WADL has not been widely adapted (this is bad news).

Alternative approach use WSDL to describe REST 
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-restwsdl/#describerestservice
(There might be other alternative solutions, you might want to research this topic further)

Hi Robert,

I'm on board with you. WADL looks really promising and we took a look at it when we were developing support for REST consumption on the Platform. It's simple enough to keep RESTs philosophy of simplicity and interoperability.
There are a few other things kicking around but this one seams to be the most promising.
I'm rooting for it to have a bit more traction so we can consider adding support for it. 

One of the things I believe is holding it back is that people are afraid. Once you add a contract there is the potential for all kinds of complexy to creep in, WS-* and the likes anyone?

I really wouldn't like to see REST going through the SOAP webservices route but some kind of standardization is in order.  Something so simple as lack of a standard date format forces everyone to do custom code.Us product developers need to write lots of detection code to guest which on of the 3-5  most common date formats the sevice is using. It's just unecessary.

My whish list for REST contracts is actually quite short. I just need something that is widely used ("the hard part"), describes all the endpoints available and their signature, standardizes some data types like dates and thats it. No need to add more stuff. 

Crossing my fingers for WADL to kick in and fill the gap so we can enjoin the benefits of seamless discovery and type safe use of REST webservices. 

David

You might also want to look into swagger, RAML and hateoas.

(but if you ask me, ill stick with WADL.)

David

After further consideration.... since WADL is not a widely used protocol and there is no real standard. Outsystems could create it's own protocol to describe a rest web service. (or follow WADL protocol, if its easier for outsystems to do this)

At the end of the day, what developers really need is a metadata page to describe the rest web service in a orderly and presentable manner just like WSDL page describes a SOAP web service methods, outsystems should create something similar to this page but REST service.

See example below - this is how ServiceStack.NET describes a REST web service; this is all that is needed.