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"HTML is the only true hypermedia" would be a funny conclusion for me to come to when i included another hypermedia, hyperview, in the book that I wrote on hype

• recursivedoubts 1y ago
  OK, have now read: https://dmitriid.com/hypermedia-is-a-property-of-the-client https://dmitriid.com/hypermedia-is-a-property-of-the-client I think that a large part of the disagreement we seem to have is language related. I do NOT believe that HTML is the only hypertext: my inclusion of HXML as a mobile hypermedia format confirms that I do not believe this. In the tweet linked in your essay I am being sarcastic and pointing out HXML as the counter argument to it, I apologize if that was not clear to you. Your essay is, as you say, meandering & at times incoherent, so I will try to clarify and address specific issues in it as best I can. You mention that clients can interpret non-hypermedia files (such as Java classes) contextually and provide actions related to the content. This is of course true and I don't disagree with it. I do NOT believe that a hypermedia system is defined solely due to a hypermedia format (and, again, I do not believe that HTML is the only hypermedia format). Markdown, for example, is a (limited) hypermedia format imposed on top of plain text. When combined with a client that understand Markdown it forms a hypermedia system. > If your custom non-standard XML DSL is hypermedia, then everything is This section is very difficult to parse. I did not create HXML, however I do think it qualifies as a hypermedia format due to the presence of hypermedia controls. And I agree that the hypermedia client for HXML is just as important as the format itself in creating a mobile hypermedia system. I also want to stress that I think you can impose a hypermedia format on top of JSON. You offer some examples and another one I'm familiar with is Siren (https://github.com/kevinswiber/siren https://github.com/kevinswiber/siren). This is analogous to how HTML imposes a hypermedia format on top of SGML, or HXML imposes a hypermedia format on top of XML. As you rightly note, that isn't enough however: you also need a hypermedia client that understands that format and can present non-linear actions to a user. You seem very focused on the idea that I think only HTML is a hypertext. I want to stress again that do not believe this to be the case, that appears to be a language misunderstanding. Finally, we have this: > Hypermedia, as Roy Fielding himself says, is the property of a machine talking to another machine using a media type both understand. The media type aka format itself doesn't matter as long as both machines understand it. Even presentation of controls to the user is a secondary concern and can be performed by the machine as it sees fit. Because, once you've unwrapped the contortionist back into their human shape, hypermedia is a property of the client. This conclusion is contradictory. "A machine talking to another machine using a media type both understand" makes the effective use of hypermedia a property of both the client and the server (both machines). I agree strongly with that conclusion, drawn directly from your own words, which is why I titled my book Hypermedia Systems rather than, say, "HTML is the only hypermedia format".