I disagree. It's a perfectly fine approach to many kinds of APIs, and people aren't "mediocre" just for using widely accepted words to describe this approach to designing HTTP APIs.
So your view is that the person who coins a term forever has full rights to dictate the meaning of that term, regardless of what meaning turns out to be useful in practice and gets broadly accepted by the community? And you think that anyone who disagrees with such an ultra-prescriptivist view of linguistics is somehow a "mediocre programmer"? Do I have that right?
The point is lost on you though. There are REST APIs (almost none), and there are "REST APIs" - a battle cry of mediocre developers. Now go tell them their restful has nothing to do with rest. And I am now just repeating stuff said in article and in comments here.
Why should I (or you, for that matter) go and tell them their restful has nothing to do with rest? Why does it matter? They're making perfectly fine HTTP APIs, and they use the industry standard term to describe what kind of HTTP API it is.
It's convenient to have a word for "HTTP API where entities are represented by JSON objects with unique paths, errors are communicated via HTTP status codes and CRUD actions use the appropriate HTTP methods". The term we have for that kind of API is "rest". And that's fine.
I met a DevOps guy who didn't know what "dotfiles" are.
However I'd argue people who use the term to describe it the same as everyone else is the smart one, if you want to refer to the "real" one just add "strict" or "real" in front of it.
I don't think we should dismiss people over drifting definitions and lack of "fountational knowledge".
This is more like people arguing over "proper" English, the point of language is to communicate ideas. I work for a German company and my German is not great but if I can make myself understood, that's all that's needed. Likewise, the point of an API is to allow programs, systems, and people to interoperate. If it accomplishes that goal, it's fine and not worth fighting over.
If my API is supposed to rely on content-type, how many different representations do I need? JSON is a given anymore, and maybe XML, but why not plain text, why not PDF? My job isn't an academic paper, good enough to get the job done is going to have to be good enough.
> This is more like people arguing over "proper" English, the point of language is to communicate ideas.
ur s0 rait, eye d0nt nnno wy ne1 b0dderz tu b3 "proppr"!!!!1!!
</sarcasm>
You are correct that communication is the point. Words do communicate a message. So too does disrespect for propriety: it communicates the message that the person who is ignorant or disrespectful of proper language is either uneducated or immature, and that in turn implies that such a person’s statements and opinions should be discounted if not ignored entirely.
Words and terms mean things. The term ‘REST’ was coined to mean something. I contend that the thing ‘REST’ originally denoted is a valuable thing to discuss, and a valuable thing to employ (I could be wrong, but how easy will it be for us to debate that if we can’t even agree on a term for the thing?).
It’s similar to the ironic use of the word ‘literally.’ The word has a useful meaning, there is already the word ‘figuratively’ which can be used to mean ‘not literally’ and a good replacement for the proper meaning of ‘literally’ doesn’t spring to mind: misusing it just decreases clarity and hinders communication.
> If my API is supposed to rely on content-type, how many different representations do I need? JSON is a given anymore, and maybe XML, but why not plain text, why not PDF?
Whether something is JSON or XML is independent of the representation — they are serialisations (or encodings) of a representation. E.g. {"type": "foo","id":1}, <foo id="1"/>, <foo><id>1</id></foo> and (foo (id 1)) all encode the same representation.
>misusing it just decreases clarity and hinders communication
There is no such thing as "misusing language". Language changes. It always does.
Maybe you grew up in an area of the world where it's really consistent everywhere, but in my experience I'm going to have a harder time understanding people even two to three villages away.
Because language always changes.
Words mean a particular thing at a point in time and space. At another one, they might mean something completely different. And that's fine.
You can like it or dislike it, that's up to you. However, I'd say every little bit of negative thoughts in that area only serve to make yourself miserable, since humanity and language at large just aren't consistent.
And that's ok. Be it REST, literally or even a normal word such as 'nice', which used to mean something like 'foolish'.
Again, language is inconsistent by default and meanings never stay the same for long - the more a terminus technicus gets adapted by the wider population, the more its meaning gets widened and/or changed.
One solution for this is to just say "REST in its original meaning" when referring to what is now the exception instead of the norm.
Pretty much everyone speaks English too, it's the official language of the company. Though we all try to be respectful; if I can't understand them then they tell me again in English. I try to respond as much as possible in German and switch to English if needed - there's also heavy use of deepl on my side which seems to be a lot more idiomatic than Google, MS, or Apple translate.
I disagree. It's a perfectly fine approach to many kinds of APIs, and people aren't "mediocre" just for using widely accepted words to describe this approach to designing HTTP APIs.
> and people aren't "mediocre" just for using widely accepted words
If you work off "widely accepted words" when there is disagreeing primary literature, you are probably mediocre.
So your view is that the person who coins a term forever has full rights to dictate the meaning of that term, regardless of what meaning turns out to be useful in practice and gets broadly accepted by the community? And you think that anyone who disagrees with such an ultra-prescriptivist view of linguistics is somehow a "mediocre programmer"? Do I have that right?
2 replies →
The point is lost on you though. There are REST APIs (almost none), and there are "REST APIs" - a battle cry of mediocre developers. Now go tell them their restful has nothing to do with rest. And I am now just repeating stuff said in article and in comments here.
Why should I (or you, for that matter) go and tell them their restful has nothing to do with rest? Why does it matter? They're making perfectly fine HTTP APIs, and they use the industry standard term to describe what kind of HTTP API it is.
It's convenient to have a word for "HTTP API where entities are represented by JSON objects with unique paths, errors are communicated via HTTP status codes and CRUD actions use the appropriate HTTP methods". The term we have for that kind of API is "rest". And that's fine.
4 replies →
I think the pushback is because you labelled people who create "REST APIs" as "mediocre" without any explanation. That may be a good starting point.
2 replies →
I met a DevOps guy who didn't know what "dotfiles" are.
However I'd argue people who use the term to describe it the same as everyone else is the smart one, if you want to refer to the "real" one just add "strict" or "real" in front of it.
I don't think we should dismiss people over drifting definitions and lack of "fountational knowledge".
This is more like people arguing over "proper" English, the point of language is to communicate ideas. I work for a German company and my German is not great but if I can make myself understood, that's all that's needed. Likewise, the point of an API is to allow programs, systems, and people to interoperate. If it accomplishes that goal, it's fine and not worth fighting over.
If my API is supposed to rely on content-type, how many different representations do I need? JSON is a given anymore, and maybe XML, but why not plain text, why not PDF? My job isn't an academic paper, good enough to get the job done is going to have to be good enough.
I agree, thought it would be really really nice if a http method like GET would not modify things. :)
> This is more like people arguing over "proper" English, the point of language is to communicate ideas.
ur s0 rait, eye d0nt nnno wy ne1 b0dderz tu b3 "proppr"!!!!1!!
</sarcasm>
You are correct that communication is the point. Words do communicate a message. So too does disrespect for propriety: it communicates the message that the person who is ignorant or disrespectful of proper language is either uneducated or immature, and that in turn implies that such a person’s statements and opinions should be discounted if not ignored entirely.
Words and terms mean things. The term ‘REST’ was coined to mean something. I contend that the thing ‘REST’ originally denoted is a valuable thing to discuss, and a valuable thing to employ (I could be wrong, but how easy will it be for us to debate that if we can’t even agree on a term for the thing?).
It’s similar to the ironic use of the word ‘literally.’ The word has a useful meaning, there is already the word ‘figuratively’ which can be used to mean ‘not literally’ and a good replacement for the proper meaning of ‘literally’ doesn’t spring to mind: misusing it just decreases clarity and hinders communication.
> If my API is supposed to rely on content-type, how many different representations do I need? JSON is a given anymore, and maybe XML, but why not plain text, why not PDF?
Whether something is JSON or XML is independent of the representation — they are serialisations (or encodings) of a representation. E.g. {"type": "foo","id":1}, <foo id="1"/>, <foo><id>1</id></foo> and (foo (id 1)) all encode the same representation.
>misusing it just decreases clarity and hinders communication
There is no such thing as "misusing language". Language changes. It always does.
Maybe you grew up in an area of the world where it's really consistent everywhere, but in my experience I'm going to have a harder time understanding people even two to three villages away.
Because language always changes.
Words mean a particular thing at a point in time and space. At another one, they might mean something completely different. And that's fine.
You can like it or dislike it, that's up to you. However, I'd say every little bit of negative thoughts in that area only serve to make yourself miserable, since humanity and language at large just aren't consistent.
And that's ok. Be it REST, literally or even a normal word such as 'nice', which used to mean something like 'foolish'.
Again, language is inconsistent by default and meanings never stay the same for long - the more a terminus technicus gets adapted by the wider population, the more its meaning gets widened and/or changed.
One solution for this is to just say "REST in its original meaning" when referring to what is now the exception instead of the norm.
> I work for a German company and my German is not great but if I can make myself understood, that's all that's needed.
Really? What if somebody else wants to get some information to you? How do you know what to work on?
Pretty much everyone speaks English too, it's the official language of the company. Though we all try to be respectful; if I can't understand them then they tell me again in English. I try to respond as much as possible in German and switch to English if needed - there's also heavy use of deepl on my side which seems to be a lot more idiomatic than Google, MS, or Apple translate.
What an incredibly bad take.