Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by recursivedoubts 348 days ago
how did the machines you programmed react to new and novel links/actions in the response?
1 comments

New are fine, Novel need catered for. I have left a fuller explanation to a sibling comment.
Right, so that means that the primary novel aspect of REST (according to the coiner of that term, Roy Fielding), the uniform interface, is largely wasted. Effectively you get a level of indirection on top of hard-coded API response endpoints. Maybe better, but I don't think by much and a lot of work for the payoff.

To take advantage of the uniform interface you need to have a consumer with agency who can respond to new and novel interactions as presented in the form of hypermedia controls. The links above will explain more in depth, the section on REST in our book is a good overview:

https://hypermedia.systems/components-of-a-hypermedia-system...