I've been writing servers for 20 years and this is the way I have always handled the API.

The industry is loaded with half-followed standards; every TDD advocate I ever spoke to said to write every test for the entire project before any code (I don't do TDD), and suddenly I am told that they are to be written just before each component.

Nobody reads books anymore. Except maybe, well, me. But I'm not giving a dime to Glen Beck.

The point in this case is that L changed his side of the API without mentioning it to anyone and was unwilling to discuss it even when asked.

My article was not a definition of REST protocol but about working with a developer who had a lousy work ethic.