>Since in manycases the results of a query will need to be reformed into > their associated domain objects
Unlikely to be the case over the HTTP API. Its unlikely people will create domain objects in (e.g.) PHP they will just use the data directly. Pagination is kinda tricky if the data changes between subsequent > requests for "pages". Since pagination is generally used for UIs, a > common approach is to place the entire dataset (or a cursor, depending > on where the data is coming from) in a session object. Regardless of > where it is kept, if you want to deal with data changes, you either > have to a) invalidate the "cached" dataset if data changes or b) keep a > copy of the whole dataset around in its "as queried" state so that > subsequent paging requests are consistent. Either case involves > keeping a fairly big duplicate data structure on the server or middle > tier and violates one of the objectives of REST-ful APIs, which is that > of statelessness. For that reason, I personally think the REST-ful API > shouldn't deal with paging. It should probably be done at some > intermediate level as needed by applications. We can certainly build a > separate API that we can all leverage if needed, but I don't think it > should be in the core REST-ful layer. > Well, I think for my use cases (websites), its likely that users dont flick between pages that often. For example, on may sites, users will view page 1 and select an item, any very view move on to page 2. Its a very different usage pattern compared to a traditional desktop UI, so there is absolutely no need to hold the sorted set on the server in a cursor type way. A typical use case for me would be 1000+ matching rows, with 90%+ of page views for the first 10, 5% for the next 10 etc...! You can clearly see that sending the entire results set of 1000+ rows over HTTP/JSON is inefficient. Of course, caching between the web server and the neo HTTP API can help, but not in all cases, and it seems silly to rely on this. Al -- Dr Alastair James CTO James Publishing Ltd. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/3/914/163 www.worldreviewer.com WINNER Travolution Awards Best Travel Information Website 2009 WINNER IRHAS Awards, Los Angeles, Best Travel Website 2008 WINNER Travolution Awards Best New Online Travel Company 2008 WINNER Travel Weekly Magellan Award 2008 WINNER Yahoo! Finds of the Year 2007 "Noli nothis permittere te terere!" _______________________________________________ Neo mailing list User@lists.neo4j.org https://lists.neo4j.org/mailman/listinfo/user
