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Discussion on: RESTful API design concerns

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drdamour profile image
chris damour

Discussing href structure has nothing to do with RESTful architecture. To be restful you need to be discussing the hypermedia controls between resources. URLs are irrelevant in RESTful.

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piczmar_0 profile image
Marcin Piczkowski

It depends.

As far as I know there are 4 different maturity levels of REST according to Richardson. You're probably referring to 3rd level also known as HATEAOS. In practice I have never worked in project doing the API this way. Even big companies like FB or Google does not build their APIs this way because in most cases API clients don't need this kind of intelligence. So if your client needs this, then OK, otherwise it just adds too much work overhead and clutters the API.

Usually what I do is the 2nd level or maturity so I would not agree with your saying.

Moreover, please note that I am discussing href structure in context of service architecture (backend app design), not the REST architecture (multimedia headers, http methods, maturity).

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drdamour profile image
chris damour

It does not depend. Fielding gave one definition of rest despite what Richardson says. But EVEN if we take Richardson, not a single level mentions href structure so again..this has nothing to do with RESTful at all.

Google and fb build tons of RESTful services. Their entire html applications are RESTful. You are way off track here.

there is no such distinction between restful architecture and backend design as you say. RESTful goes from service to client, that’s a core tenant of its very definition. Try to think about your problem restfully and you’ll soon see why your questions are so confusing now. Your trying to model your problem domain with a broken language.

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piczmar_0 profile image
Marcin Piczkowski

Ok, we have different opinions and I appreciate it. So what's the right API for my problem domain according to you and can you justify it?

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drdamour profile image
chris damour

That’s a fair question, lemme think about it today