> Fielding's own examples from his blog, how'd you turn a lamp on and off via RE... | Hacker News

Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit

		hnbad on Nov 1, 2023 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: How to (and how not to) design REST APIs > Fielding's own examples from his blog, how'd you turn a lamp on and off via REST? Would you be like `POST /lamp`? No. It's unclear WTF is happening. No, of course you'd be like `PATCH {"light": "off"} /lamp`! Kidding of course but it's true that REST purity does not make for intuitive APIs in complex real-world problem domains.

rswail on Nov 2, 2023 [–]

In HTML, you could have a FORM with the URL of /lamp/switch that you PUT.

cxr on Nov 2, 2023 | | [–]

PUT is not a valid method from an HTML form. Only GET or POST are permitted.

3cats-in-a-coat on Nov 3, 2023 | | | [–]

This kind of reveals a little secret of many of the REST gurus. They have no clue what they're talking about.

3cats-in-a-coat on Nov 2, 2023 | | [–]

So you're putting a switch. Great API design.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact