REST: A not so Uniform Connector Example

Still buzzing with the possibilities of REST. One of the things I don't like about http is that it has a tendency to reduce everything down to the lowest common dominator "Strings". So all your parameters are strings and often your data is one long string in the form of XML. This is as a result of the REST constraint for a uniform connector across the entire web. But the world isn't uniform, it contains different realms each realm with its' unique characteristics. Isn't it suffcient that your connector is uniform within its given realm?

For example say I want to get access to a resource on a remote server running Squeak. Why not create a squeak specific connector by sublcassing:

SqueakConnector subClass HttpConnector
" A connector that understands the Squeak object representation"

formUrl: squeakServer object: anObject: message: aMessage params: parameters
"Answers a URL object"

GET: url
"Answers the squeak object at url"

A Squeak client would look like:

con := SqueakConnector new.
url := con formUrl: #myServer object: #UserDB message: #getUser params: (Dictionary new at: #user put: 'fred').
fred := con GET: url.

The actual URL passed to "HttpConnector>>GET" would be:

"http://SqueakUniverse/myServer/UserDB/getUser?user=fred"

As long as all servers in the "SqueakUniverse" agree on their object representation and use an agreed URL format then this should work. And my client code doesn't need to worry about dealing with the actual object representation on the wire.

I'm sure this is still RESTfull, honouring the concept of a uniform connector, but constraining its scope to a specified namespace. I need to see if this type of stuff is allready being done.