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I didn't really have an epiphany or buy in, I just figured out a way to think about it so I wasn't worrying about verbs all of the time. Purity in all things is

I didn't really have an epiphany or buy in, I just figured out a way to think about it so I wasn't worrying about verbs all of the time. Purity in all things is a problem, REST included. One thing that kind of gets you is that HTTP itself is not the best transport for all of these things. If we are talking about something that has to run over HTTP, we might do something like create a run of reports (maybe a POST to reports/run). That could return a list of report_ids that were created and their associated status, with an run_id associated with the collect run. There's no fighting! However, if you want that data streaming back to you, this is where you might think you want something more like WebSockets. For some use cases, this can be more efficient than having the client polling to see if the result of a long running process is ready. It all depends. Anyway, not advocating for anything here, just pointing out that I had the same worry about supporting a rich vocabulary of verbs, but then kind of realized it didn't matter because all verbs you want can be nouns. If you are using HTTP though, the REST verbs match up pretty nicely with how the protocol works, so it avoids inventing another abstraction to sit on top of it.

WClayFerguson 6y ago
You seem to realize that an RPC API design is totally separate concern from HTTP, and I agree with most of what you're saying, but then in your last sentence you say "REST verbs match up nicely" and can simplify your API. Respectfully, no it can't. REST doesn't remove abstraction layers, it creates abstraction layers. Whether you do REST or not you will have an interface between client and server, which has to be documented and have a well defined set of nouns and verbs, period. Can't be avoided. Removing my choice of verbs does NOT simplify things. If my API only needs CRUD verbs that's what I'll use. No problem. But forcing me into those 4 verbs, only, ever, and always (as pure REST does) is not a help, it's a hindrance.
- mattmcknight 6y ago
  By "REST verbs match up nicely", I meant REST verbs match up nicely with HTTP methods...(there are currently about 9 HTTP methods?). That's why it's not an additional abstraction, a POST is a POST. Compared to SOAP, which is where I came to it, it's tightly aligned with the transport. (People used to advocate for SOAP saying you could use it over SMTP...). If you are going to do a non-HTTP API, REST doesn't make a lot of sense. Anyway, I was still annoyed by the limited verbs 10 years ago after using REST for five years at that point. I even blogged about it, as I started doing HATEOAS about that time, so I really feel your annoyance. I've just discovered over time that the verb/noun thing is just stylistic, not an actual technical concern. All of your verbs can be nouns.
  - WClayFerguson 6y ago
    I've also done plenty of SOAP back in the day. I independently invented the equivalent of SOAP in an API back in 1998 where my RPC API used only one method, which was basically a "call(command)" for sending XML data upstream and getting an XML response (C++ app). The request XML had the "name" of the "verb" as part of the request. Basically a "command pattern". So what I do today is I use "REST APIs" (like in Java Spring, Axios/Ajax, etc.) but all my endpoints are named as "verbs" (not nouns), and the only HTTP verb I ever do is a "POST". So everything boils down to this: let myJsonReponse = api.doSomeVerb(myJsonRequest);

WClayFerguson 6y ago

You seem to realize that an RPC API design is totally separate concern from HTTP, and I agree with most of what you're saying, but then in your last sentence you say "REST verbs match up nicely" and can simplify your API. Respectfully, no it can't. REST doesn't remove abstraction layers, it creates abstraction layers. Whether you do REST or not you will have an interface between client and server, which has to be documented and have a well defined set of nouns and verbs, period. Can't be avoided. Removing my choice of verbs does NOT simplify things. If my API only needs CRUD verbs that's what I'll use. No problem. But forcing me into those 4 verbs, only, ever, and always (as pure REST does) is not a help, it's a hindrance.

mattmcknight 6y ago
By "REST verbs match up nicely", I meant REST verbs match up nicely with HTTP methods...(there are currently about 9 HTTP methods?). That's why it's not an additional abstraction, a POST is a POST. Compared to SOAP, which is where I came to it, it's tightly aligned with the transport. (People used to advocate for SOAP saying you could use it over SMTP...). If you are going to do a non-HTTP API, REST doesn't make a lot of sense. Anyway, I was still annoyed by the limited verbs 10 years ago after using REST for five years at that point. I even blogged about it, as I started doing HATEOAS about that time, so I really feel your annoyance. I've just discovered over time that the verb/noun thing is just stylistic, not an actual technical concern. All of your verbs can be nouns.
- WClayFerguson 6y ago
  I've also done plenty of SOAP back in the day. I independently invented the equivalent of SOAP in an API back in 1998 where my RPC API used only one method, which was basically a "call(command)" for sending XML data upstream and getting an XML response (C++ app). The request XML had the "name" of the "verb" as part of the request. Basically a "command pattern". So what I do today is I use "REST APIs" (like in Java Spring, Axios/Ajax, etc.) but all my endpoints are named as "verbs" (not nouns), and the only HTTP verb I ever do is a "POST". So everything boils down to this: let myJsonReponse = api.doSomeVerb(myJsonRequest);