Representational State Transfer or REST. Is it the new software paradigm or just a big SOA blowout?

Business - Redefining How Software Works

REST (Representational state transfer)

Representational State Transfer

Probably what I am saying here is naive, as I hate XML and don't quite understand the full scope of things like REST, but from what I managed to gather, this system has a few possible advantages: good caching, good division of resources (both computational and data) which should allow for better user in multitask/multiprocessor systems, true native use of XML (or any other format :D), therefore saving a lot of time from serializing, instantiating, deserializing, etc.

If what the first article says is correct, this would prove to be a system both adaptable and scalable, something that programmers seek all the time. It can be spread out on more computers on a net or used on the same computer, with more efficiency and easy of programming than the dreaded web services or SOA.

Personally, I think I wouldn't particularly like programming in a REST way, but one never knows.