REST API rule about tunneling

Question

Just read this in the REST API Rulebook: GET and POST must not be used to tunnel other request methods.

Tunneling refers to any abuse of HTTP that masks or misrepresents a message’s intent and undermines the protocol’s transparency. A REST API must not compromise its design by misusing HTTP’s request methods in an effort to accommodate clients with limited HTTP vocabulary. Always make proper use of the HTTP methods as specified by the rules in this section. [highlights by me]

But then a lot of frameworks use tunneling to expose REST interfaces via HTML forms, since <form> knows only about GET and POST. My most recent example is a MethodRewriteMiddleware for flask (submitted by the author of the framework): http://flask.pocoo.org/snippets/38/.

Any ways to comply to the "Rule" without hacks or add-ons in web frameworks?

Answer 1

No, there isn't. So if you need to, break the rule anyway.

I don't know what the big deal is. Protocols encapsulate other protocols all the time. TCP/IP for example has four layers of such abstraction.

Of course, the better path is for clients to get with the program and support the HTTP verbs properly. But it's not a perfect world.