If, instead of text markup, the server just sent an image of the entire UI remote-desktop style how would it be any different? You could still have a single URL that is entered, all information needed to traverse the service can be encoded in the request/responses, and no knowledge of the entire interface is needed by the client.
But we have diverged pretty far from the point. Software clients using REST APIs cannot use the self-describing nature of REST so to claim they're all using it incorrectly I don't believe is a valid criticism. Browser-like clients, and you can include hyperview in that, can use the self-describing nature because they're pushing all the understanding to the user. But that is such a niche experience (outside of HTML browsers) that it isn't even worth discussing. For hyperview, it's not consuming generic REST APIs -- it's just acting as mobile-specific browser for a single service. That's why I said it's not really interesting.
I don't understand why something being "niche" or "not really interesting" has any relevance when asking if it is a hypermedia technology. You assert that "it's not consuming generic REST APIs" but that's exactly what it is doing as far as I can tell, unless you define "generic" to mean "HTML".
I dunno, I'm probably not smart enough to understand what you mean. In my mind, if it satisfies the constraints outlined by Fielding in Chapter 5 of his dissertation, it's a RESTful network architecture, and, as far as I can see, hyperview satisfies those constraints.
Maybe you can simplify it for me and point to the specific constraint in there that hyperview doesn't satisfy?
> You assert that "it's not consuming generic REST APIs" but that's exactly what it is doing as far as I can tell, unless you define "generic" to mean "HTML".
It's not consuming a weather API or a storage API or a query API. It's consuming an API designed exactly for the singular application that is being designed. It's not distributed except in the sense that it is a client/server application but it's tightly coupled to a singular implementation. A completely different environment to what the entire paper is about.
You've responded to literally the least interesting part of my comment as even accepting hyperview as a hypermedia technology doesn't negate any of the criticism of "by the book" REST. I may be guilty of caring more about whether REST as described is practical and possible then appealing to the authority of Fielding's definitions.
But it isn't coupled, that's the whole point: hyperview provides a general, mobile-centric hypermedia that embeds hypermedia controls in exactly the manner that fielding describes. (sorry, I'm going to keep referring to that since that's where the definition comes from.)
Until you can show me a REST constraint that it is violating, rather than vague assertions like "an API designed for the singular application", I'm not going to grant you that the technology isn't RESTful. Any web app can have "an API designed for that singular application." I can link out to other sites, but it doesn't have to, and the fact that it does or doesn't isn't material to whether or not it is ReSTful. If it has identification of resources, manipulation of resources, self-descriptive messages and uses Hypermedia As The Engine of Application State, it's RESTful.
Pretty simple, just show me the constraint violated by hyperview and I'll agree with you. I don't know if HyperView provides Code On Demand, but that's an optional constraint of REST, if I understand correctly.
You make a good argument but it's unfortunately not in response to anything I'm saying.
I never said hyperview isn't RESTful. In fact, it's probably one of the few examples of a technology that follows the REST principles to the letter you're advocating for and thus why you used it as example.
Yet it's also an example of the lack of necessity of the uniform interface constraint. As the developer of everything in the application, I don't need metadata to describe the resources or self-descriptive messages. It describes everything, I as the developer, would already know. It's pointless.
Regular software clients that aren't "browsers" like hyperview, the self-description metadata don't help there either.
So I guess I'm saying the whole uniform interface constraint is completely misguided for any software that isn't some kind of browser. And then only if that browser is actually meant to be a browser.
OK, then that's the core disagreement: I think the uniform interface and the benefits of a RESTful network architecture are useful even if the software you are using isn't a "browser". In the case of hyperview, a major benefit is that you can update your mobile application without redeploying the client, exactly because of that uniform interface. That's why the creator went with the RESTful approach over a more traditional mobile app network architectures.
There's nothing new about that model; having a client interpret an application from a server is as old as computing itself.
> I think the uniform interface and the benefits of a RESTful network architecture are useful even if the software you are using isn't a "browser".
Except it can't be used for anything other than a "browser" either a real browser or something like hyperview. That's fine but it hardly suggests that it should be necessary.
But we have diverged pretty far from the point. Software clients using REST APIs cannot use the self-describing nature of REST so to claim they're all using it incorrectly I don't believe is a valid criticism. Browser-like clients, and you can include hyperview in that, can use the self-describing nature because they're pushing all the understanding to the user. But that is such a niche experience (outside of HTML browsers) that it isn't even worth discussing. For hyperview, it's not consuming generic REST APIs -- it's just acting as mobile-specific browser for a single service. That's why I said it's not really interesting.