[gnaritas]

> Postgrest deviates from some REST URL conventions that REST users are familiar with.

Those are common API conventions, but they have nothing to do with REST; REST only requires unique URI's for resources, it has nothing to say about the format of those URI's. The Postgres version does not deviate from REST, it deviates from a popular API pattern, that's all.

[bdcravens]

I like the idea of REST as a language-agnostic datasource; adhering to conventions facilitates this.

[gnaritas]

If you're actually doing REST, the URI convention is irrelevant since you won't be constructing URI's to being with, but following the URI's given to you by previous entry points. Actual REST requires you follow links, not construct them. So having well defined URI conventions like above actually harm the REST API be encouraging API clients to construct links manually rather than use the links given to them and it hurts the API by not allowing the server to change the URI structure over time because clients become bound to a particular format. Those conventions are harmful under the principles of REST as they encourage tight coupling and prevent change. URI's are not supposed to matter for a reason, REST is supposed to be hypermedia, i.e. follow links, don't build them.