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I agree with the fundamental principle that "true" HATEOAS is desirable, and that HTML provides it while JSON doesn't. That said, I don't quite agree with the

I agree with the fundamental principle that "true" HATEOAS is desirable, and that HTML provides it while JSON doesn't. That said, I don't quite agree with the criticism of out-of-band information. Is the HTML spec not out-of-band information? Likewise, if they had used an SGML api as the example instead of HTML, would not all the same criticisms of the JSON, for not being HATEOAS, be valid? There are already many JSON-based APIs on the right path like ActivityPub, JSON-LD, and others. Having to know the specs of these things is no more out-of-band than knowing HTML. TL;DR: SGML:HTML::JSON:XXXX. If we can all agree on a good XXXX instead of freeforming from just JSON every time, we can get closer to HATEOAS.

schnable 3y ago
JSON is fine too, if it carries the same semantic information.
whstl 3y ago
"Is the HTML spec not out-of-band information?" It isn't. The HTML spec isn't transferred every time a webpage is accessed, so it's not exactly information. Also not really helpful, it's like saying "english" is "out-of-band information" when reading a website written in english. "Out-of-band" has a very precise meaning here, it comes from the telecom term "out-of-band signaling". There's a wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-band_data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-band_data