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Cognitive load is what matters

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1455 points nromiun | 1 comments | 30 Aug 25 12:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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schnatterer ◴[31 Aug 25 06:15 UTC] No.45080799[source]▶
> business logic and http status codes Why hold this custom mapping in our working memory? It's better to abstract away your business details from the HTTP transfer protocol, and return self-descriptive codes directly in the response body: { "code": "jwt_has_expired" }

While the logic behind it sounds reasonable, REST does the exact opposite with the same goal: simplicity, easy to learn, i.e. reduce mental load. I know there are other reasons for REST/SOAP/Graphql, etc. Still makes mental load a somewhat subjective matter to me.

replies(2): >>45080867 #>>45080938 #
1. Too ◴[31 Aug 25 06:47 UTC] No.45080938[source]▶
The article misses that http status code is not a custom mapping, it’s a standard mapping. Using this standard, most http libraries will already be equipped with features to handle them, for example automated retries and backoffs on a 429 with Retry-After.

Replacing this standard with custom strings in the response body is terrible advice. Even if we all could have wished that http status codes should have been human readable strings rather than numbers. Augmenting the standard response with additional custom information is still something you can and should do as cherry on the top, or if you have many conditions falling under the same standard code. Like, don’t shoehorn something custom into 418 I’m a teapot just because it happened to be unused.