Fascinating that even here on Hacker News, where we can presume the audience is well-informed about tech matters, the comments on this post show a large amount of confusion about the definition of "RESTful". I see some comments raise the issue of XML versus JSON, as if the encoding format impacts on whether something is RESTful. I see others raising the issue of HATEOAS, with some comments suggesting that RESTful is HATEOAS, and others suggesting that RESTful is a different approach from HATEOAS.

A term that lacks any agreed upon meaning is of no value. But I wonder why the meaning has become so blurry?

I was under the impression that the bible on this subject was the 2007 book by Leonard Richardson, Sam Ruby (and a nice forward by David Heinemeier Hansson):

RESTful Web Services

http://www.amazon.com/RESTful-Web-Services-Leonard-Richardso...

However, reading the comments on this page, I have the impression that many people here have never heard of that book.