The client knows nothing about the API end points associated with this data, except via URLs and hypermedia controls (links and forms) discoverable within the HTML itself. If the state of the resource changes such that the allowable actions available on that resource change (for example, if the account goes into overdraft) then the HTML response would change to show the new set of actions available.
If the client knows nothing about the meaning of the responses, it cannot do anything with them but show them to a human for interpretation. This would suggest a restful api is not made for system-to-system communication, but requires human mediation at every step of the way, which is precisely not how api’s are used. In short, this definition of restful api’s can’t be right, because it suggests restful interfaces aren’t api’s at all. Once a programmer adds code to parse the responses and extract meaningful data, treating the restful interface as an api, the tight coupling between client and server reappears.
If the client knows nothing about the meaning of the responses, it cannot do anything with them but show them to a human for interpretation. This would suggest a restful api is not made for system-to-system communication, but requires human mediation at every step of the way, which is precisely not how api’s are used. In short, this definition of restful api’s can’t be right, because it suggests restful interfaces aren’t api’s at all. Once a programmer adds code to parse the responses and extract meaningful data, treating the restful interface as an api, the tight coupling between client and server reappears.