Re: Prefetching VS HATEOAS

On 04/17/2013 03:21 PM, Erik Wilde wrote:
> hello shea.
>
> On 2013-04-17 12:13 , Shea Levy wrote:
>> Often when designing REST interfaces for relational resources, I run
>> into a tension between the efficiency of prefetching a related resource
>> when one is requested on the one hand and the simplicity, elegance, and
>> generality of referencing related resources via hypermedia. Does anyone
>> have any advice on how best to manage that tension?
>
> maybe i am misreading what you're saying, but i don't really see a 
> tension in the sense of a conflict, more a design trade-off. 
> prefetching is on the implementation level (it seems)

Well, yes and no. I was specifically thinking of a server-side prefetch, 
where a single request returns multiple resources (rather than a client 
intelligently pulling more than it needs). That's a difference in 
interface, not just implementation.

> , and you would prefetch something based on the assumption that a 
> request to a linked resource would be received soon, right? the tricky 
> part probably is to avoid making prefetching stateful, assuming that 
> the request for the related resource will be processed by the same 
> server (if you have more than one). so if you make prefetching 
> stateful, you run the risk of making it unlikely to actually provide 
> you the benefit it can provide in a more stateful setting. so i guess 
> in the end my answer would be: don't start implementing stateful 
> patterns based on perceived performance benefits that rely on your 
> service behaving in a stateful way.
>
> cheers,
>
> dret.
>