When REST Doesn't Fit

A caller sends a request whose work takes three minutes.

Holding an ordinary HTTP request open for three minutes produces a fragile contract. A browser, gateway, or load balancer may time out first. The caller cannot tell whether closing the connection cancelled the work. A retry may start it a second time. Progress has nowhere to appear, and the final status code cannot arrive if the connection is already gone.

REST has not failed here. One request-response exchange is simply the wrong shape for this job.

REST stays the default in this course, and leaving it takes two statements:

**Name