Currently the @Path(“”) annotation cannot be used to annotate methods that
return delegates. We believe that a change would enhance the “do one thing
and do it well” mantra of Agile programming.
(See attached web application)
The ManageThings class is a class that communicates with some underlying
system. It knows the format of the system and how to convert the data into
the representation that is required by the web service. This functionality
will always be required by the web service – there is no need to configure
this bit at runtime. The proposed architecture is that (for each request)
this class passes the retrieved things to delegate classes.
The IListThings class is a delegate. The role of IListThings is to process
the things to match the user request. The requirements of the processing may
be different for different installations of the application, and may change
over time. We would like these processing options to be configurable at
runtime. There are two sub classes of IListThings – one which returns the
things unordered, and one which sorts the things by id (ascending or
descending). The delegate is created by a factory – the factory may be
configured at runtime. This allows the available formatting options to be
chosen at runtime.
Problem: ManageThings cannot declare an empty path for methods that return
delegate objects.
This means that we are required to put the request to list things at
/things/list. We would prefer to put the request at /things because that
looks like a traditional directory structure and will be better understood
by the end user.
p.s. Another use of the delegate in our application is to change which
method request types (GET, POST, etc.) are available.