Hi Luca,
> Wouldn't it be better to *not* have the metadata return at each call
> or is it necessary in order to make hypermedia clients work?
Put differently, one could say:
“Why don't we just remove the search box from all Google and Yahoo pages?
Everybody knows you just need to type in /?q=search+term.”
It's about more than just convenience, really.
Fielding defines "hypermedia" as:
"[t]he simultaneous presentation of information and controls
such that the information becomes the affordance
through which the user (or automaton) obtains choices and selects actions.”
[1]
And if we want machines using the Web in an autonomous way,
we have to provide them with similar affordance as humans [2].
Best,
Ruben
[1] http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-hypertext-driven
[2] http://ruben.verborgh.org/phd/conclusion/
