[uf-rest] ahah/xhtml and meta tags

[David Heinemeier Hansson]

> I can't help but question validity of this approach. I may be
> idealistic in my thinking, but I've always tried to keep specific
> application and long-term strategy "together but separate".
>
> What about mobile applications, or using HTML as the API?

We choose to go with dedicated interfaces for both. So for example,  
Backpack has a mobile interface (that's not just HTML through SSR)  
and a REST api on top of the Ajax-only HTML interface.

So the validity for us is quite clear: It's not worth the effort to  
create an interface that works in non-Ajax browsers. That percentage  
of users is not enough for us to deal with the pain. Just as lots of  
people have written off Netscape 4.7 or even IE 5.0.

But whatever works for you. Which is why we make the tech to create  
dual-interfaces pretty straight forward with Rails.
--
David Heinemeier Hansson
http://www.37signals.com    -- Basecamp, Backpack, Writeboard, Tada
http://www.rubyonrails.com  -- Web-application framework
http://www.loudthinking.com -- Broadcasting Brain