With the increasing popularity of the BFF - Backend for frontends pattern and use of one-way data-binding frameworks like React.js, we've noticed a backlash against REST-style architectures. Critics accuse REST of causing chatty, inefficient interactions among systems and failing to adapt as client needs evolve. They offer frameworks such as GraphQL or Falcor as alternative data-fetch mechanisms that let the client specify the format of the data returned. But in our experience, it isn't REST that causes these problems. Rather, they stem from a failure to properly model the domain as a set of resources. Naively developing services that simply expose static, hierarchical data models via templated URLs result in an anemic REST implementation. In a richly modeled domain, REST should enable more than simple repetitive data fetching. In a fully evolved RESTful architecture, business events and abstract concepts are also modeled as resources, and the implementation should make effective use of hypertext, link relations and media types to maximize decoupling between services. This antipattern is closely related to the Anemic Domain Model pattern and results in services that rank low in Richardson Maturity Model. We have more advice for designing effective REST APIs in our Insights article
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With the increasing popularity of the BFF - Backend for frontends pattern and use of one-way data-binding frameworks like React.js, we’ve noticed a backlash against REST-style architectures. Critics accuse REST of causing chatty, inefficient interactions among systems and failing to adapt as client needs evolve. They offer frameworks such as GraphQL or Falcor as alternative data-fetch mechanisms that let the client specify the format of the data returned. But in our experience, it isn’t REST that causes these problems. Rather, they stem from a failure to properly model the domain as a set of resources. Naively developing services that simply expose static, hierarchical data models via templated URLs result in an anemic REST implementation. In a richly modeled domain, REST should enable more than simple repetitive data fetching. In a fully evolved RESTful architecture, business events and abstract concepts are also modeled as resources, and the implementation should make effective use of hypertext, link relations and media types to maximize decoupling between services. This antipattern is closely related to the Anemic Domain Model pattern and results in services that rank low in Richardson Maturity Model. We have more advice for designing effective REST APIs in our Insights article.
