It's Not REST
August 28, 2024
daybook, http, rpc | permalink
I've been building "REST" APIs for years that are not actually REST. (See "How Did REST Come To Mean The Opposite of REST?" as a starting point). I've kind of known this for a while and I've always meant to get back to and try to fully understand HATEOAS and other similar concepts. But for whatever reason - mainly, the things I built did what they were supposed to do (deliver data) - I never have. And I'm completely fine with that. REST seems overly complex and rigid. I don't need the reponse to be "self-describing" or contain the possible actions from there, and I don't really want to read yet another thing about the nuances of hypertext or hypermedia. I just need the thing to provide data. I think external, user-facing and higher-level documentation is useful.
So, what is it instead? I think HTTP-based RPC. And that's all that's really needed.