[zedr]

> Easily discoverable data, e.g. user ID 3 would be at /users/3. All of the CRUD (Create Read Update Delete) operations below can be applied to this path

Strictly speaking, that's not what REST considers "easily discoverable data". That endpoint would need to have been discovered by navigating the resource tree, starting from the root resource.

Roy Fielding (author of the original REST dissertation): "A REST API must not define fixed resource names or hierarchies (an obvious coupling of client and server). (...) Instead, allow servers to instruct clients on how to construct appropriate URIs, such as is done in HTML forms and URI templates, by defining those instructions within media types and link relations. [Failure here implies that clients are assuming a resource structure due to out-of band information, such as a domain-specific standard, which is the data-oriented equivalent to RPC’s functional coupling].

A REST API should be entered with no prior knowledge beyond the initial URI (bookmark) and set of standardized media types that are appropriate for the intended audience (i.e., expected to be understood by any client that might use the API). "[1]

1. https://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-hypert...

[arethuza]

You are quite correct, but by this stage the original definition of REST to include HATEOAS has pretty much been abandoned by most people.

Edit: Pretty much every REST API I see these days explains how to construct your URLs to do different things - rather than treating all URLs as opaque. Mind you having tried to create 'pure' HATEOAS REST API I think I prefer the contemporary approach!

[zedr]

I agree with your preference. I too lean towards a pragmatic approach to REST, which I've seen referred to as "RESTful", as in the popular book "RESTful Web APIs" by Richardson.

[mkoubaa]

I don't understand why the original dissertation is treated like gospel

[arethuza]

I don't think its completely unreasonable to look at a definition like REST and be dogmatic about certain aspects like HATEOAS which are arguably absolutely central to the original concept.

However, in retrospect, it might have been an idea to give what developed from Fielding's original work a clearly different name.

[smadge]

The web has a standard for identifying resources, URIs. One nice thing about URIs is they can be URLs. A single integer id doesn't even identify a user since if I give you 3 you have no idea if it is users/3 or posts/3, or users/3 on Twitter or users/3 on Google, or the number of coffees I have drunk today.