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I'm fine with using ideas that make sense and rejecting the ones that don't. It's still solid advice for API design, and the most successful approach we've come

I'm fine with using ideas that make sense and rejecting the ones that don't. It's still solid advice for API design, and the most successful approach we've come up with. Doing REST to the letter always turns into some kind of modern art installation with lots of hammers looking for nails; this is the technology department, religion is down the corridor. I have full confidence that the authors considered these ideas, not laws.

masklinn 10y ago
So… why do you call it REST rather than just HTTP since that's exactly what it is? You're using GET and POST for what they were built for, great, that's just HTTP, why not call it that? > I have full confidence that the authors considered these ideas, not laws. "The authors" considered hyperlinking to be the one core concept of REST, all the rest is just fluff/transport concerns: http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-hypertext-driven http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-hyperte... (that's the bloke who wrote the original REST paper). That's like saying the authors of the word "bicycle" considered it being two wheeled idea, not law, and you'll call your 8-wheeled ATV a bicycle because it has wheels and you think wheels are nice and solve your problem and the religion department is down the corridor. Yeah wheels are nice and solve your problem, your motorised monstrosity is not a bicycle though.
- scaryclam 10y ago
  I'm leaning more and more in the direction of ditching the term "REST API" and just saying our APIs are Web or HTTP APIs. I'm beginning to think people just say REST API because it looks better on their CV, not because its helpful to other developers who may end up using it.
andybak 10y ago
I've made this argument in a much better form elsewhere but I don't have much time. To my mind the benefit of REST purism was that it killed SOAP. A similar thing has happened at other stages of tech development (e.g. CSS purism cured us of all those awful <table> excesses). The purism was a mistake and the details were wrong but it was necessary to get everyone behind a common goal - getting rid of something worse.

masklinn 10y ago

So… why do you call it REST rather than just HTTP since that's exactly what it is? You're using GET and POST for what they were built for, great, that's just HTTP, why not call it that? > I have full confidence that the authors considered these ideas, not laws. "The authors" considered hyperlinking to be the one core concept of REST, all the rest is just fluff/transport concerns: http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-hypertext-driven http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-hyperte... (that's the bloke who wrote the original REST paper). That's like saying the authors of the word "bicycle" considered it being two wheeled idea, not law, and you'll call your 8-wheeled ATV a bicycle because it has wheels and you think wheels are nice and solve your problem and the religion department is down the corridor. Yeah wheels are nice and solve your problem, your motorised monstrosity is not a bicycle though.

scaryclam 10y ago
I'm leaning more and more in the direction of ditching the term "REST API" and just saying our APIs are Web or HTTP APIs. I'm beginning to think people just say REST API because it looks better on their CV, not because its helpful to other developers who may end up using it.

andybak 10y ago

I've made this argument in a much better form elsewhere but I don't have much time. To my mind the benefit of REST purism was that it killed SOAP. A similar thing has happened at other stages of tech development (e.g. CSS purism cured us of all those awful <table> excesses). The purism was a mistake and the details were wrong but it was necessary to get everyone behind a common goal - getting rid of something worse.