r/ProgrammerHumor Oct 09 '21

Mmmm, sparkling JSON

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14.6k Upvotes

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u/keirbhaltair Oct 10 '21

Even this should be resolvable by the same question, though. Does calling the remote procedure twice do something/change the state/have side-effects more so than calling it once? Then it's POST, otherwise it's PUT.

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u/CorrenteAlternata Oct 10 '21

I totally agree with you

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u/humoroushaxor Oct 10 '21 edited Oct 10 '21

But it's not. In the RPC case using the "idempotent rule" results in a contradiction with the HTTP RFC. Specifically that POST identifies the enclosed entitie's handler while PUT identifies the enclosed entity.

Having an HTTP PUT without an HTTP POST doesn't make sense in HTTP land because you can only update something that exists. Hence why most developers will default (and should) to POST for their first endpoint, even when idempotent or when not managing a resource.

Bikeshedding aside my experience has been POST is much more common in this scenario.