Hi all.
I am building an application that will be used both by humans and
machines ("via an API") and I am making it RESTful. I've decided to
design it as one big API where human-operated browser is just another
client to the API. With that I'm actually mixing user interface and data
in requests for certain resources.
For example, a list of profiles sits behind the /profiles URI.
If requested format is HTML (default), the the list of profiles is
returned as full HTML page complete with navigation links, sidebar
content, etc... It's a classic interface webpage.
If requested format is JSON (via Accept header, or ?format=json query),
only the data is returned as JSON array of profile dictionaries
The most obvious benefit here is that for each resource I basically have
single view handler (with the exception that POST/PUT and DELETE call
respective functions after the resource view handler has "prepared" the
resource in a way that's common to all verbs), and what is returned back
to client is only a matter of Renderer and template. The HTML renderer
uses templates that "know" how to include this additional data (nav
links, sidebar content, etc...)
So I have a single set of resources and only the requested format
defines whether the entire interface is sent back along with data for
humans and their puny browsers. Machines of course do not need all that
and talk in simple and effective JSON, but basically I have just one set
of view handlers.
However, I'm having a philosophical discussion with myself here whether
this is "truly" RESTful and whether I'll hit some kid of unforeseen
obstacle later.
Because the only alternative is separating "interfaces" (complete HTML
pages with navigation, sidebar content, blah) as different resources
which may or may not contain the data (ie. is it already present in the
page or must be requested with some background javascript magick against
the "real API"). While this does provide a cleaner separation of
concerns, I'm forced to have more view handlers for basically the same
thing because interface and its data are interconnected, there's no
generic interface here that can operate on different data, etc...
Or perhaps I can separate the URIs and have the interface view handlers
be just dummy functions that delegate to the actual API view handlers.
Opinions? Suggestions?
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.oO V Oo.
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