Often merely moving from the dev environment to the release environment changes the URIs. Sure, you could try to minimize the part that changes between environm

Often merely moving from the dev environment to the release environment changes the URIs. Sure, you could try to minimize the part that changes between environments and teach all your clients to form correct URIs between environments, but it's still coupling. And dev/prod is hardly the only thing people find themselves adjusting in URIs; it was just an example.