Re: dwbp-ISSUE-213 (BP_REST): Changes on BP about REST APIs [Best practices document(s)]

Hi Erik,
I can live with avoiding using the word REST when it isn't used to 
describe an API that follows all the REST constraints, but there is a 
webby coding style that most web API developers follow that often makes 
use of hypermedia but doesn't rely on it for holding state. Developers 
using this style do expose resources with consistent IDs identified by 
URIs and manipulated via representations. What do you suggest we call 
that approach?
-Annette

On 11/23/15 12:26 AM, Erik Wilde wrote:
> On 2015-11-20 20:51, Annette Greiner wrote:
>> As a group, we have, I think wisely, avoided centering any of the best
>> practices on any single technology, because we want the practices to be
>> able to survive the forward progress of technology and popularity. We
>> can mention specific technologies in the implementation sections, 
>> though.
>
> +1 for not recommending specific technologies, and +1 for maybe 
> listing some as examples if that's a pattern throughout the spec.
>
>> I also believe we need to consider pragmatic REST as well as HATEOAS.
>
> REST has a proper definition. "pragmatic REST" doesn't (or it's 
> something along the lines of "do whatever you like via HTTP, mostly 
> use it like FTP with a different name").
>
> HATEOAS *as a name* should be avoided, people actively try to avoid it 
> these days. call it hypermedia instead, and say that it's the essence 
> of webbyness.
>
>>> On Nov 16, 2015, at 11:52 AM, Pieter Colpaert
>>> Instead I would suggest taking it a step further. When we combine
>>> REST, HATEOAS, Linked Data and HTTP for an Open Data API thoroughly,
>>> you'd come up with Hydra [1] (a community group [2] at W3C). Wouldn't
>>> it be better to create a best practise that says you need to weave
>>> your data documents together with Hydra?
>
> i concur with annette when it comes to not recommending specific 
> technologies. also, you can make much more lightweight recommendations 
> than this one, which means that people have to use the RDF metamodel.
>
> what might be a very lightweight and pragmatic best practice about 
> hypermedia would by to say that one of the essential aspects of 
> hypermedia are typed links:
>
> https://github.com/dret/hyperpedia/blob/master/concepts.md#link-relation-type 
>
>
> and that when it comes to typed links, RFC 5988 and the resulting link 
> type registry at 
> http://www.iana.org/assignments/link-relations/link-relations.xhtml 
> provide a simple foundation for anybody to build their vocabulary on.
>
> cheers,
>
> dret.
>

-- 
Annette Greiner
NERSC Data and Analytics Services
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Received on Monday, 23 November 2015 22:25:42 UTC