REST is a great starting point for an API, but generic REST interfaces (in Rails, Django, or any other framework) are relied on too heavily. I'm especially interested in mobile APIs, which have very specific considerations that REST doesn't answer well.
Building a generic data back-end for mobile is very hot right now, with lots of funded startups in the space. Some of them are just offering a REST API, which frankly any Rails or Django developer could produce in about 10 minutes. Mobile APIs need to be different, mostly due to slow or non-existent connections, and require additional thinking. More details here:
http://ow.ly/9YMrM
Anybody know of any mobile back-end providers that are thinking innovatively about this? I've consulted a few of these startups and they all seem hesitant to make any choices that go beyond REST...but as far as I'm concerned, offering a generic solution for something that mobile devs have to develop every time they create an API would be well worth it. A simple example is to accept a guid for every created object and return that guid in the response. It's something you have to do to know that the object has been sent successfully to the server, so why make the developer code it every time?
That, or a nice way of using different mimetypes to indicate which representation you want.
Also, http status codes perfectly solve the problem of needing to know wether an object was sent to the server successfully. No need to reinvent the wheel and mess with guids imo.
Building a generic data back-end for mobile is very hot right now, with lots of funded startups in the space. Some of them are just offering a REST API, which frankly any Rails or Django developer could produce in about 10 minutes. Mobile APIs need to be different, mostly due to slow or non-existent connections, and require additional thinking. More details here: http://ow.ly/9YMrM
Anybody know of any mobile back-end providers that are thinking innovatively about this? I've consulted a few of these startups and they all seem hesitant to make any choices that go beyond REST...but as far as I'm concerned, offering a generic solution for something that mobile devs have to develop every time they create an API would be well worth it. A simple example is to accept a guid for every created object and return that guid in the response. It's something you have to do to know that the object has been sent successfully to the server, so why make the developer code it every time?