[Cthulhu_]

HTTP/JSON API works too, but you can assume it's what they mean by REST.

It makes me wish we stuck with XML based stuff, it had proper standards, strictly enforced by libraries that get confused by things not following the standards. HTTP/JSON APIs are often hand-made and hand-read, NIH syndrone running rampant because it's perceived to be so simple and straightforward. To the point of "we don't need a spec, you can just see the response yourself, right?". At least that was the state ~2012, nowadays they use an OpenAPI spec but it's often incomplete, regardless of whether it's handmade (in which case people don't know everything they have to fill in) or generated (in which case the generators will often have limitations and MAYBE support for some custom comments that can fill in the gaps).

[motorest]

> HTTP/JSON API works too, but you can assume it's what they mean by REST.

This is the kind of slippery slope where pedantic nitpickers thrive. The start to complain that if you accept any media type other than JSON then it's not "REST-adjacent" anymore because JSON is in the name and some bloke wrote down somewhere that JSON was a trait of this architectural style.

In this sense, the term "RESTful" is useful to shut down these pedantic nitpickers. It's "REST-adjacent" still, but the right answer to nitpicking is "who cares".

[troupo]

> The start to complain that if you accept any media type other than JSON then it's not "REST-adjacent" anymore because JSON is in the name and some bloke wrote down somewhere that JSON was a trait of this architectural style.

wat?

Nowhere is JSON in the name of REpresentational State Transfer. Moreover, sending other representations than JSON (and/or different presentations in JSON) is not only acceptable, but is really a part of REST

[motorest]

> Nowhere is JSON in the name of REpresentational State Transfer.

If you read the message you're replying to, you'll notice you are commenting on the idea of coining the concept of HTTP/JSON API as a better fitting name.

[troupo]

Read messages before replying? It's the internet! Ain't no one got time for that

:)

[motorest]

Don't stress it. It happens to the best of us.

[ivan_gammel]

This. Or maybe we should call it "Rest API" in lowercase, meaning not the state transfer, but the state of mind, where developer reached satisfaction with API design and is no longer bothered with hypermedia controls, schemas etc.

[Zambyte]

Assuming the / was meant to describe it as both an HTTP API and a JSON API (rather than HTTP API / JSON API) it should be JSON/HTTP, as it is JSON over HTTP, like TCP/IP or GNU/Linux :)

[harha_]

I recall having to maintain an integration to some obscure SOAP API that ate and spit out XML with strict schemas and while I can't remember much about it, I think the integration broke quite easily if the other end changed their API somehow.

[marcosdumay]

> it had proper standards

Lol. Have you read them?

SOAP in particular can really not be described as "proper".

It had the advantage that the API docs were always generated, and thus correct, but the most common thing is for one software stack not being able to use a service built with another stack.