Re: [Specifications] Question about HATEOAS shortcuts (#189)

>Are you 💯 percent sure about that? I've always assumed that the entrypoint 
>should be the stable point of contact.

It can be moved to i.e. another sub-domain, or port or whatever. I wouldn't rely on it as immutable. API changes over time, some times it happens that one API is sucked into another.

>This already presents a problem.
>The client should have no understanding that 123 is some kind of identifier.
>The only real identifier is the URL.

The resource's URL should be bookmarked - this way you don't need understanding anything else. Just obtain resource under that URL and you're all set.

>Maybe I misunderstood your answer and you meant the API documentation for the developers, 
>not the API documentation for the machines described with Hydra vocab.

It is for both, developers and machines. Actually it would be also for users - you can use API documentation elements to provide human readable UI.
As for bookmarks - API documentation is not that necessary as you can see. Resolving a bookmarked URL may be enough. Only in case of an issue with resolution (i.e. 404 Not Found), server should come with a response with API documentation included so you can fall back i.e. to home page or as you wrote - provide some error message.

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GitHub Notification of comment by alien-mcl
Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/HydraCG/Specifications/issues/189#issuecomment-484233314 using your GitHub account

Received on Wednesday, 17 April 2019 19:42:56 UTC