Why and How You Should Write REST-Centric Applications • Hacker News Board

Re: Why and How You Should Write REST-Centric Applications

#31

Post by lazylland » Wed, May 18, 2011, 11:35 PM UTC

DocSavage wrote: post #16

I was introduced to RESTful APIs when Rails started championing them. And while I've read a number of REST articles, it still seems like I'm not understanding the nuances of long-term vs short-term decoupling of client/server to the level that Fielding demands for REST. For example, there's his blog entry here: http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-hyperte... A key point is this paragraph: "A REST API…

IMHO, REST's "software design on the scale of decades" is a lofty claim that has probably been validated only when the "application" in question is a web browser with a human user consuming hypermedia.

Re: Why and How You Should Write REST-Centric Applications

#32

Post by extension » Wed, May 18, 2011, 11:36 PM UTC

DocSavage wrote: post #16

I was introduced to RESTful APIs when Rails started championing them. And while I've read a number of REST articles, it still seems like I'm not understanding the nuances of long-term vs short-term decoupling of client/server to the level that Fielding demands for REST. For example, there's his blog entry here: http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-hyperte... A key point is this paragraph: "A REST API…

The lessons of REST are straightforward in the context of human-machine interaction. The common confusion happens when trying to apply it to machine-machine interaction. I've never seen anyone make much of a case for REST in that context, not even its creator.

If the server can evolve new functions independent of the client then it seems to me that the client has to evolve new intentions independent of the server. At present, clients can only do that with a human operator.

Re: Why and How You Should Write REST-Centric Applications

#33

Post by vdm » Tue, May 31, 2011, 12:00 AM UTC

notJim wrote: post #29

justincormack wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardcore randomly change all the urls in testing to make sure nothing is hardcoded. A hateos api should still work.

Haha, I thought about doing that, but it would just serve to piss a lot of people off. I think it would be kind of cool to have a little project/developer toy that would be an API where only a single endpoint was provided (think http://mysteryapi.com ), and the rest of it had to be discovered. It could be like the labyrinth from House of Leaves, but in REST API format.

Developers Like Hypermedia, But They Don't Like Web Browsers. From Leonard Richardson at WS-REST2010.

http://ws-rest.org/2010/files/WSREST2010-Preliminary-Proceed... starts at page 6