Much of my work recently has been focused on API creation (REST APIs in particular) and, in my spare time, trying to push the boundaries of ORM usage (through sandman). While I once believed these to be entirely separate pursuits, now I'm not so sure. Thinking about all the REST API hype, and hypermedia's neglected client, perhaps the two are more closely intertwined than I thought.
REST APIs, ORMs, And The Neglected Client
Why I Hate HATEOAS
Most of the population of people who have read Roy Fielding's dissertation tell us that, while we may understand HTTP verbs, we don't know anything about hypermedia. Our REST APIs, they say, are not really RESTful, and certainly do not exhibit Hypertext As The Engine Of Application State, or HATEOAS. The fact that we have APIs you need to read documentation to understand is a clear signal, they tell us, that the client is using out-of-band information to navigate the server. Hypermedia, they say, is the answer. We simply embed enough information in our responses that the client can intelligently choose what action to take next using only the contents of the HTTP response.
Why This Is Tremendously Stupid
You Need to Start a 'whizbang' Project Immediately
There is a directory on my computer that I value more highly than all others.
It lives under ~/code/github_code/, which, if you knew my standard directory scheme,
lets you know it's the GitHub repo of a personal project. Curiously, though,
it's not an actual repo. In fact, the directory itself is empty at the moment
(which is why I currently value it so much).
The directory's name is whizbang.
A Nice Little Bit of Python
The blog has been relatively quiet recently due to my many irons and fires and all that, but I did want to take a second and post a simple bit of code which really appeals to me. It solves a common problem in a reasonably elegant way and is straightforward enough for Python programmers of any level to use.
Automatically Generate RESTful Endpoints From Your Flask-SQLAlchemy Models
I'm a bit obsessed with easily creating REST APIs using Flask. I've tried all sorts of things, always trying to find the way that required the least amount of effort from the end user. Yesterday, I think I got as close as I'm going to get.
