The Truth About REST APIs: Beyond CRUD
2025-07-09
This article delves into the essence of the REST architectural style, revealing its core principle: Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOAS). Many so-called "RESTful APIs" merely adhere to CRUD operations, neglecting the key constraint of HATEOAS, leading to tight coupling between client and server, hindering maintainability and scalability. Through Roy Fielding's arguments and examples, the article clarifies how true REST APIs guide client interaction through hypermedia links, enabling dynamic resource discovery and state transitions, ultimately building loosely coupled, evolvable distributed systems. The article also discusses the practical trade-offs often leading to simpler, RPC-like approaches.
Read more
Development