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We already have a 'universal API client' called the browser. Therefore, implementing a NEW one isn't very interesting.

Sorry, I don't get what you're responding to. Browsers don't understand hypermedia APIs (or even HAL)--they only grok HTML.

> Browsers don't understand hypermedia APIs (or even HAL)--they only grok HTML.

HTML is a hypermedia media type. A server spits it out, the client (a browser) consumes it.

A browser is a generic hypermedia API client, for services that expose HTML.

please can we not stretch the definition of hypermedia "API" to include HTML. HTML is a hypermedia type, but it's primarily for representing information for human consumption, so it's not an API in the sense most people understand.. why confuse things?

It's not stretching the definition: HTML and the web are where RESTful principles are defined from. They're the OG hypermedia API.

> it's not an API in the sense most people understand

Neither are hypermedia APIs in general.

I know where REST came from, my point is that - as far as normal people are concerned - HTML web apps are.. apps.. not APIs.

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