On the Edge of Hypermedia - Midwest.IO

Stateless.. Nouns & Verbs.. Idempotent.. HTTP Auth.. Tokens.. We’ve all heard those phrases thrown around when we talk about REST. We’ve been told our systems have to include these characteristics or they’re not RESTful. We’ve talked over and over again on how to implement them. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we lost the answer to “why?” What’s the point? What value do we gain by doing things the “right” way?

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1. ON THE EDGE OF HYPERMEDIA D. KEITH CASEY, JR AUSTIN, TX KEITH@CLARIFY.IO @CASEYSOFTWARE
4. http://TheAPIDesignBook.com
5. SPEAKING THE SAME LANGUAGE..
6. “Strictly RESTful” REST is not a standard
7. The Constraints Client-Server Stateless Cacheable Layered System Uniform Interfaces Code on Demand (optional)
8. Richardson Maturity Model
9. Level 0: POX (on both your houses)
10. What REST is not.. XML over HTTP JSON over HTTP
11. The Constraints Client-Server Stateless Cacheable Layered System Uniform Interfaces Code on Demand (optional)
12. Level 1: Resources
13. RESOURCES == NOUNS
14. Uniform Interfaces Four Principles Identification of Resources Manipulation of Resources through these Representations Self-descriptive Messages Hypermedia as the engine of application state (HATEOAS)
15. Identification of Resources Generally /nouns/id /nouns/:id/:action But not required /?n=nouns&id=:id /?n=nouns&a=:action&id=:id
16. Collections too.. Generally /nouns /nouns?page=n&limit=100 /nouns/:id
17. Level 2: HTTP Verbs
18. Uniform Interfaces Four Principles Identification of Resources Manipulation of Resources through these Representations Self-descriptive Messages Hypermedia as the engine of application state (HATEOAS)
19. HTTP VERBS ARE GREAT, USE THEM. DON’T CREATE MORE
20. Manipulation through those Interfaces
21. … but how do I know what to do?
22. Level 3: Hypermedia Controls
23. Uniform Interfaces Four Principles Identification of Resouces Manipulation of Resources through these Representations Self-descriptive Messages Hypermedia as the engine of application state (HATEOAS)
24. Self Descriptive Each message should tell you: if that resource is cachable; how to process itself; how to request the next resource;
25. Code on Demand
    (optional) A request doesn’t just retrieve a resource but also the code to act upon it We don’t have to know or understand the code, just how to run it Allows for flexibility, upgradability
26. Ummm… gmail?
27. But… descriptive messages? HAL Collection JSON Siren
28. Uniform Interfaces Four Principles Identification of Resources Manipulation of Resources through these Representations Self-descriptive Messages Hypermedia as the engine of application state (HATEOAS)
29. HATEOAS Clients make state transitions only through actions that are dynamically identified within hypermedia by the server (e.g. by hyperlinks within hypertext). Except for simple fixed entry points to the application, a client does not assume that any particular actions will be available for any particular resources beyond those described in representations previously received from the server. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Representational_state_transfer#RESTful_web_services
30. Choose your own Adventure
31. Link Relations A link relation is a descriptive attribute attached to a hyperlink in order to define the type of the link, or the relationship between the source and destination resources. ! Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_relation
32. {! "_class": "Collection",! "_links": {! "first": {"href": "/v1/audio"},! "item": [! {"href": "/v1/audio/d796f2d0eb72492bb088e0e9fcb1dfa2"},! {"href": "/v1/audio/0fc32337449a4a9d95f78a9a6cc85945"},! {"href": "/v1/audio/fc34f625a12f4e17945c3c027dbaf19e"},! {"href": "/v1/audio/5a7f16a728ea40c4b8179c1b6b1796ec"},! ],! "last": {! "href": "/v1/audio?iterator=l1b00000000000000000000000000000000h0"! },! "next": {! "href": "/v1/audio?iterator=l1adabb46fdba39418390f8c9b2b04a4631h1395421325416"! },! "self": {"href": "/v1/audio"}! },! "limit": 4,! "total": 16! }
33. Glory of REST.. eh?
34. WHAT REST IS NOT.. A STANDARD ! PRETTY URLS ! XML OVER HTTP
35. Additional Resources
    (no pun intended) http://bit.ly/apiWeekly <- we do the hard work http://shop.oreilly.com/product/ 9780596529260.do http://TheAPIDesignBook.com http://videos.restfest.org http://AustinAPI.com
36. ON THE EDGE OF HYPERMEDIA D. KEITH CASEY, JR AUSTIN, TX KEITH@CLARIFY.IO @CASEYSOFTWARE