Category Archives: Design

“REST” interfaces

Posted on by

I just wanted to get something that I’ve thought for many years on record, because I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to discuss it much before, but I believe JSON web services (“REST APIs”) and web applications should deal only in two HTTP verbs, being: GET and POST. You use GET for queries and you use POST for submissions. All POST operations go through business logic for particular services and CRUDing URLs is a supremely bad idea, in my opinion. Just wanted to get that on record. Thanks. p.s for web applications you should 3xx on success, not 2xx on success; what you do for JSON web services is up to you, but for those 2xx is probably fine.

Best practices for REST API design

Posted on by

Over on the StackOverflow blog: Best practices for REST API design. Some of it is good but I disagree with a bunch of things. I made some notes:

* Use singular

https://www.example.com/comment/list

Not:

https://www.example.com/comments


* Use multidimensional selectors, not path/hierarchical selectors:

https://www.example.com/comment/list?artist=nirvana&album=nevermind

Not:

https://www.example.com/album/nirvana/nevermind/comments


* Use noun/verb format:

https://www.example.com/comment/list
https://www.example.com/comment/register
https://www.example.com/comment/edit/54688
https://www.example.com/comment/view/54688
https://www.example.com/comment/reply/54688


* The [ noun, verb ] pairs map to Facilities for implementation:

[ comment, list ] => CommentLister
[ comment, edit ] => CommentEditor
[ comment, view ] => CommentViewer

Facilities have submit/render functionality and round-trip view state.


* HTTP success 30x's not 2xx's.


* Include a 'submission ID' on <form> elements for idempotent operations


* GET and POST only, don't CRUD URLs, rather invoke business processes