title: Why SOAP can't use HTTP caching mechanisms
body: <p>I am making a transition from SOAP to REST, and I would like to convince my colleagues that this is a good move. We don't need the extra security mechanisms that SOAP can provide. For us the overhead of SOAP and WSDL has only proven to be a headache over the years.</p>
  
  <p>Apart from the obvious simplifications, one really valuable advantage for our system would be the HTTP caching mechanisms. I have read things on the subject, but I still don't fully understand why these caching mechanisms can't be applied to SOAP messages.</p>
  
  <p>Is it simply because REST <em>by convention</em> encodes all the parameters in the url? Since a GET call can also have a body with parameters, I understand that it's not restricted for REST, but the caching mechanisms don't work if you do so?</p>