Show HN: Leptus – Erlang REST framework that runs on top of Cowboy web server

Show HN: Leptus – Erlang REST framework that runs on top of Cowboy web server(github.com)

73 points by s1n4 7 years ago | 7 comments

einrealist 7 years ago |

I don't want to be a killjoy, but why do so many "REST frameworks" focus so much on the transport (HTTP) and not so much / or at all on tools to create and manage hypermedia representations (links, actions, domain objects)?

s1n4 7 years ago | |

I actually had a plan (around 2015) to make a DSL for REST API generation/automation on top of Leptus. But I couldn't afford to work on it.

einrealist 7 years ago | | |

The least you can do is to emphasise the issue, maybe point to libraries that can be used in conjunction with your framework: a library for creating/using links and link templates, libraries for some existing vocabularies, like Siren or HAL.

Keep it up ;)

allover 7 years ago | |

Perhaps because hypermedia has yet to be proven useful?

(Arguments and counterexamples welcome, I've been looking for them for years).

einrealist 7 years ago | | |

It could have been better. I call the aera of SOAP and CORBA as one of the reasons why Hypermedia formats have been avoided for so long. But that is changing, slowly. The drivers for that are maturing experiences with HTTP-driven APIs. DDD is becoming more important again, especially for organizations, that evolve around service oriented software (and hardware) architectures.

One example, that you find on HNs frontpage right now, is Solid ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100895 ). Another example is Google's use of JSON-LD for meta data descriptions in HTML pages. And there is Mastodon, making use of vocabularies like ActivityPub.

The best example though, is HTML and your Browser of choice.

mmartinson 7 years ago |

I'm curious what usage this saw 2014-2015, and what the current drive is to bring it back to life.

s1n4 7 years ago | |

It saw some usage in Rdio (the music streaming service) and a couple of other places. chef.io wanted to switch to Leptus back then, but I don't know if they did. I brought it back to life for personal use, and also because I was still receiving requests to do so.