Werner comments on RS-232/SOAP and transport vs. transfer;
But I do think Mark is pushing the limits by suggesting that the reads & writes on the rs232 registers are in reality similar to hidden REST-like HTTP GET & POST verbs.
Well, I was simply suggesting an analogue existed, not what it was. But since he asks … 8-)
Though I fully understand that RS-232 is not, by definition, a transfer protocol, many (most, I would say) uses of it were/are as a transfer protocol. This is because the abstractions exposed by the protocol are often made directly available to applications, rather than being hidden from the application by other layers. This makes this use of RS-232 more than just “move these bits to the other side”; it makes them “submit this data to the application for processing”, i.e. POST
Also, RS-232 has no notion of “GET”; you won’t find anything in the spec that defines how to request data (not just “receive”, as you would with a “read”).
no comment until now