Someone Save Us From REST

Rob Conery treats REST discussions as a kind of doctrine fight, where people correct each other with quotations, definitions, and appeals to authority. He says the argument often matters more to the participants than to the work itself, and that many developers do not really know REST as confidently as they claim.

He also says REST is still a useful set of ideas for API design, but that devotion to it can turn into religious-style certainty. The post points to a Rails example with two controllers and uses it to show how quickly a discussion about structure becomes a debate about who understands REST correctly.

Reading notes

#

• REST debates often become pedantic and zeal-driven rather than useful.
• People respond to REST discussions by citing Wikipedia, Fielding, or their own experience to prove authority.
• PATCH is presented as a new HTTP method for updates, but the post treats the excitement around it as exaggerated.
• REST is described as a useful guideline for API design, not something everyone can claim to fully know.
• The author objects to practical design choices being defended mainly through REST doctrine.
• The example with two controllers in a small Rails app becomes a dispute about whether the structure is RESTful.
• The post connects REST zeal to religious devotion and warns against that kind of certainty.