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Stop using REST for state synchronization (2024)
mber 22, 2024 tl;dr: Most apps need state synchronization, not state transfer. We should replace REST and friends with proper state synchronization protocols where appropriate.
This mismatch means that we usually implement ad-hoc state synchronization on top of REST, and it turns out that this is not entirely trivial and actually incredibly cumbersome to get right. It’s probably easiest to explain what I mean with an example that’s part of most webapps in some variant: An input element that allows the user to edit a piece of text that is saved to the backend database. I’m not in a position to give an accurate overview of the field, but there are some initiatives to push for actual state synchronization mechanisms: Automerge, Yjs, the Braid working group, Electric SQL and others.
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