As a programmer I want a programmable world. The web has been a big step forward in making things programmable. Especially in the form of REST. HTTP clients can send HTTP requests to urls and proxy can filter or change what is passed through.

In the future more real world things will become programmable. For example I can program my domain name provider. As long as I supply enough money to them, I can register as many domain names as I like.

The same thing could happen with webshops and supermarkets. Each week I will send an electronic grocery list to the webshop via the web using REST and a person will deliver it the same day to my house.

The biggest problem with this approach is that people will make it harder for automated processes to interact with websites. The webs nature is to be programmable. Google (the search engine) couldn’t exist without the web. They use the programmable web since the start of their company. The way they use the programmable web is the simplest way in which the web can be used. People do it every day with their browsers.

The sad thing is, that other more complicated uses of the web are made harder to do than they should be.