REST and directory servicies

[Richard Brodie]

Now I've had a week since Python-UK to reformulate the question:

Suppose I have two RPC services: fruit and vegetables; and two hosts:
hector and achilles. Now I might the services named in some directory
system, say:

//example.com/services/fruit/
//example.com/services/vegetables/

Now, one could reformulate them for REST as:
http://hector.example.com/services/fruit/ and
http://achilles.example.com/services/vegetables

However, that has nodenames in, which is likely to violate the Coolness rule.
So it ought to get rewritten as, for example:

http://services.example.com/fruit/ and
http://services.example.com/vegetables/

Now, it gets ugly enough hacking mod_rewrite to maintain a site of
any complexity. If I throw web services into the mix, it's likely to have
to get done more often; and also robustly, therefore probably redundantly.

Granted, these are implementation issues but has anyone been down this
way before? It seems to be that what I'm looking for is a lightweight,
robust way of mapping a directory service into the http: namespace.
Or maybe I have some fundamental architectural misunderstanding.
(Did you say 'knives')?

Any views?