As the web continues to gain a well-deserved recognition for being the most prudent choice for a de facto computing platform, the issue of its API is becoming very critical. In this presentation, Alex Bunardzic will argue that Ruby on Rails might be the most optimal API for programming the web. He bases his convictions on the fact that Rails is built upon the Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA) which has REST as its underpinning. Not only has that architecture emerged as a publicly vetted standard, it's also notable for its radical simplicity (introducing the unbelievably simple inventory of only four verbs!) Compared to the astronomically complex inventory of countless verbs that Service=Oriented Architecture (SOA) demands, ROA is proving to be much easier to program, especially when using Rails.