Re:Stop Writing REST API Clients
by steveklabnik on Sunday February 24, 2013 @10:18PM
(#5277141)
The important part is that this is all documented in the media type. Of course, computers aren't able to just figure out what's up, that's why it's agreed upon beforehand.
> You can't truly add/remove new functionality
You can absolutely add new functionality, because rule #1 of clients that work this way is 'ignore things you don't understand.' Removal will obviously break things, so it's important to handle this in the appropriate way.
I guess ultimately my point is that these kinds of APIs are significantly different, and come with a very different set of constraints/goals/implementation details. It's like you're saying "well, I don't have a full list of function calls I can make!" because you're used to SOAP where there's a WSDL and 'RESTful' APIs don't have description documents. Of course! It's a different architecture!
> You can't truly add/remove new functionality
You can absolutely add new functionality, because rule #1 of clients that work this way is 'ignore things you don't understand.' Removal will obviously break things, so it's important to handle this in the appropriate way.
I guess ultimately my point is that these kinds of APIs are significantly different, and come with a very different set of constraints/goals/implementation details. It's like you're saying "well, I don't have a full list of function calls I can make!" because you're used to SOAP where there's a WSDL and 'RESTful' APIs don't have description documents. Of course! It's a different architecture!