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[leimeisei]

Hey,

I'm not what you'd consider to be a "highly experienced" programmer, so I'm not very familiar with the whole topic of web data services. I am primarily a web developer, and I primarily use PHP for those tasks. Usually, when I needed something like MySQL connectivity, I'd write classes specifically for that (for example, a UserService or CommentService class) that would be in charge of interacting with the database and returning data in the form of User and Comment objects.

Recently, I've gotten a big web project to do, and a buddy of mine is telling me to do services the RESTful way. After researching what REST services were, I told him that those looked like more API-type things that I'd only use if I planned to do something like an iPhone application, which will most likely never be in the plans for this company, so I didn't see the point of actually basing the web site I'm building off a REST service, I just plan on coupling the web application directly with the database, as I usually do.

These are the two data flows in my mind:

Way I'm doing it:

PHP Code >> PHP Data Service >> MySQL

Way I view REST as doing it:
PHP Code >> PHP Data Service >> XML Parser >> HTTP Server >> REST SERVER >> MySQL

See, since I view it that way, I just don't think it's worth all that extra overhead.

Thanks for reading my long post! Tell me your thoughts please! Am I right in this? Is my friend right? Should I use REST services when the data is really only going to be used by the web server, which is on the same network? Or maybe I should look into SOAP?