Re: HTML as a format for REST APIs

Hi,

What happened to this discussion? I was on the mailing list, then traffic just stopped and I can't seem to sign up again.

Is this list still active?

Thanks

Michael Koster


On Sep 16, 2013, at 5:57 AM, David Janes <davidjanes@davidjanes.com> wrote:

> Sure. Here's how I see it (also see the comments and links to that original article you posted).
> 
> 1) 
> 
> the underlying model is the important thing, not the serialization
> 
> 2) 
> 
> Machine to machine communications should use formats that are mostly written for that ... but still allow human readability. I.e. JSON.
> 
> 3)
> 
> HTML is a difficult to author correctly and a pig _to parse_ in practice, especially in constrained environments. I've got a ton of hands-on practical experience in my day job on this one (dealing with data transfer in the tourism industry) and it's difficult to get quality data in JSON and XML; when the source is HTML it's always a nightmare.
> 
> 4)
> 
> JSON won. API writers are using JSON, whether standards committees like it or not. 
> 
> 4a)
> 
> JSON-LD has traction (e.g. Google), is relatively easy to overlay on ad-hoc JSON, is extensible almost by definitions and has an excellent reusable vocabulary (schema.org) specifically useful in the context of the IoT.
> 
> 5)
> 
> Data is HTML is a trick, mainly useful when the _primary_ consumer is humans and the _secondary_ consumer is a machine (rather than the other way around). I say this with 3 years of active participation in the Microformats community and being the lead author of the hAtom spec. That is entirely IMO but my feeling is that if data-in-HTML was the way to go, it would have been spontaneously widespread adopted by now.
> 
> Regards,
> David
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 8:04 AM, Dominique Hazael-Massieux <dom@w3.org> wrote:
> Hi David,
> 
> Le lundi 16 septembre 2013 à 07:16 -0400, David Janes a écrit :
> > May I suggest that JSON-LD / Semantic Web definitions is probably a
> > stronger route to go.
> 
> I agree that JSON-LD is likely a strong contender, but it's not that
> obvious to me that it necessarily is a stronger route to follow.
> 
> Could you elaborate what you think are the strengths of JSON-LD compared
> to HTML+RDFa?
> 
> The main strength I can see is that JSON is simpler to parse than HTML;
> but otherwise, HTML seems pretty strong on many points, including on
> service description and human-consumption on which JSON and JSON-LD seem
> weaker.
> 
> > I've been thinking and writing for the last few months about how these
> > could be used in a Semantic Web context, with REST & HATEOAS. Here's
> > two slideshows:
> > [...]
> 
> Thanks for the links!
> 
> Dom
> 
> 
>