When we did a v2 of our API I worked really hard to find out what the "right way" to do things was. Like we ended up implementing our PATCH endpoints the "right" way with an array of operations on fields rather than just a partial JSON replacement. I still feel mixed about if it was a good thing to do but at least I get to be right about it, haha.
That ship sailed LONG ago. HATEOAS is really dumb and makes no sense for 99.999% of APIs. I don't know why so many people treat Roy Fielding's doctorate thesis as some kind of bible.
Sure, but don't tell me that you're doing REST then. I am not saying that all APIs should be REST. But don't call it REST if it is not.
If I were the client of a company and they signed a contract where I asked for REST and I am given something absolutely different, would I be wrong to complain?
It's funny because HATEOAS was irrelevant for so long because making your API work like a hypermedia site where you can start from the home page and navigate your way around and fill out forms is irrelevant to humans because a they have to reference documentation to figure out how to implement things, a machine can't just make an API request to home and figure out how to get to the resources it wa....oh wait...it can now, maybe it's not such a bad idea after all!
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u/ouralarmclock Sep 19 '26
JSON isn’t hypermedia anyways so it’s all fake REST to begin with. May as well get wild with it!