[Mailman-Developers] Mailman 3 REST API URLs

[Florian Fuchs]

Hi all, 

I have recently been working on a small REST client library for mailman3 [1]. The purpose of this library is to make it easier for UI developers to access MM3's new REST API. The library will also be used in the MM django UI which is currently being built. 

Anna Granudd (who is working on the MM django UI as well as the client) and I have been discussing how this library could access and edit mailing list settings - which is not only a question of how the library itself should work, but also what resources should be exposed by the API under which URL. 

Both the client and the API are still work in progress, so we thought we ask for opinions on how things could be done.

For example: At the moment an API request to /3.0/lists/listname at example.org exposes only some basic list information. Would it be a good idea to let this URL expose more list details (i.e. all list settings) or would it be better to have a different URL for that? (Something like /3.0/lists/listname at example.com/settings).

Why a different URL for the settings? Obviously the first option (one URL for all list details) would be simpler and, as a developer, you would have all information at hand with only one call. Wether you use that info to build a detailed settings page or just a small list info page wouldn't matter. 

On the other hand there are quite a lot of DB fields for every list and that means quite a bit of traffic every time you access them through the API. That's why it could make sense to use different URLs.

So if we went for the latter option: Why not go even further and access the settings field by field? Or in smaller groups, i.e.:
/3.0/lists/listname at example.com/settings/archiving

Thanks for your thoughts!

Florian


[1] https://code.launchpad.net/~flo-fuchs/mailman/restclient/+merge/28522


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