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[George Reese <george.reese@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This doesn't fit into the "things that make me grumpy" bucket, but instead an opinion on how APIs should be done…

I personally believe (and this is described in great detail in my API book) that you never, ever auto-generate JSON and XML from model objects for your REST APIs. You need your models to be free to evolve independent from the API representation.

If you take that step, you can make your XML and JSON independent be first-class citizens. There are other ways as well, but that's my recommended approach.

It's really not that hard. As I've said in a couple of other emails, the enStratus API supports both XML and JSON and maintaining that support without auto-generated output that supports schema changes across versions just isn't that hard. It's definitely not where we spend our maintenance time on the APIs.

-George

On Aug 10, 2012, at 8:14 AM, Gabe Westmaas <gabe.westmaas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 
> 
> The biggest problem with this is that either json or XML ends up feeling second class. 


--
George Reese - Chief Technology Officer, enStratus
e: george.reese@xxxxxxxxxxxxx    Skype: nspollution    t: @GeorgeReese    p: +1.207.956.0217
enStratus: Enterprise Cloud Management - @enStratus - http://www.enstratus.com
To schedule a meeting with me: http://tungle.me/GeorgeReese