So I''ve recently been building in an API to my application. I''ve looked at it in a number of ways to see how best to approach it. I''m on edge rails now to evaluate the RESTful stuff, too. In general, I like the REST URLs. It''s nice to have a convention. But I''ve seen a bit written up about how nice it is to have the API and "non-API" code wrapped neatly into single actions within the controllers and use "respond_to" to figure out how things should be handled. I have started down this road to fully get a feel for it and I''m not sure I get it yet. I can see how this would be useful for relatively simple apps like blogs and todo-lists where you have basic presentation. But in more elaborate apps, you end up with presentation that varies considerably between the API and non-API views. Consider, for example, an online st0re. When a human asks to list items, the controller may call up several associations before presenting. The items are there, of course, but also there might be related items, price quotes for the items elsewhere or in different quantities, item stock, and so on. Basically, for all but the simplest actions, your handling is quite different whether you''re presenting to a human or another program. HTML presentations have redirects, flash, session handling, and so on. The API presentations are pretty simple and straightforward. The added overhead of the "respond_to" handling kind of messes up my controllers. So for me, I feel it is better to keep the API separate. I can test it separately. I can see it separately. I can more easily wrap my head around the methods provided and the data offered. But the jury is still out for me. Is there something I''m missing here? I''m really interested in hearing from folks that have engineered larger applications with APIs. Jake -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---