hypermedia's killer use case for mobile?

[Alex Moore - Niemi]

i can't really convince anyone at my office hypermedia has any use value, especially for mobile, especially for ios. anyone actually found a use for it?

[Dennis Roof]

Sure, hypermedia is easier to work with. We use a json hypermedia API with the jsonview plugin for Firefox and Chrome, so it is readable from the browser. All resource hypermedia links are provided at the API root, so anyone instantly knows which resources our API provides. And for each resource we use the Templates from the Collection::JSON standard not only to provide information in our API itself which fields can be posted to a resource, but also a regex code for each item which is used both for server-side validation and client-side validation. We have had very few questions how our API should be used with only half a page introduction on how our API works and a reference to the Collection::JSON standard. We've been using the same API standard for over 2 years for multiple single page apps and mobile apps. We made an early poor choice in the back-end framework, so we had to rewrite the API back-end code entirely after a year. But our API front is still backward compatible with the API we started 2 years ago, with no "second version" in sight in the future. Because of our "always discover resource groups from the API root and follow the links" policy, we can change the API hierarchy to add,  merge and split resources whenever we feel necessary without breaking any app using our API or having to inform anyone. I really love that feature, simple and amazing!

When I first introduced hypermedia API to my office 3 years ago, no one liked the idea. There was no killer use case for using hypermedia, it was all theory and why change a working formula? New ideas, new benefits and new unforeseen problems. No competitor is using hypermedia, so why should we? After about a year the most vocal and conservative colleague changed jobs, I was able to show my colleagues a video about a hypermedia API from Amundsen and the CEO took a leap of faith in my idea. That's how we really got the hypermedia API. We don't regret the decision at all, we got all the benefits and practically no disadvantages.

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 4:15 AM, Alex Moore - Niemi <bigba...@gmail.com> wrote:

i can't really convince anyone at my office hypermedia has any use value, especially for mobile, especially for ios. anyone actually found a use for it?

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[Adrien Risser]

Thanks Dennis for the feedback, very interesting first-hand experience.

Alex,

You might find this interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoVebZX49rc

Using Hypermedia APIs to Drive Interactive Mobile Applications by Benjamin Greenberg from Comcast.

Cheers,

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Adrien Risser,

Freelance Node.js Consultant

M. +33 6 59 60 32 58

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrienrisser

[Alex Moore-Niemi]

When the ios tech lead saw this video (Ive seen it too) he scoffed that their app was probably hybrid and not native. Any equivalent example of a fully native mobile app?

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[Joe Kowalski]

We've been converting all of our tech to feed off of our hypermedia datasources over the last 3 years. At first, the big bang was simply the data connection. I had a hard time seeing big value in the hypermedia part. That is, until we needed to build our mobile solutions.

Before I go to far I'll say that we are using ionic, so purist will scoff (kinda silly really). Works for me, we are completly cross platform with a single code base, develop at warp speed, and my customers don't see a difference. Additionally, we have the most robust line-of-business apps in the marketplace (ServiceMonster) and we are still 3 weeks from release.

The hypermedia's big bang come from two things: our mobile developer was new to our team but was able to blast through the API with no docs and proper end point hookups, even though he never heard of REST or hypermedia. Second, because my data agnostic content type (Morpheus), we get TONS of client goodies such as auto validation and standardize collection handeling.

Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S® 6, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

[Steve Klabnik]

I wrote a blog post a very long time ago:
http://words.steveklabnik.com/i-invented-hypermedia-apis-by-accident