Create a way to represent relationships between entities

[tswicegood]

No description provided.

[tswicegood]

Based on my current discussion in #1 with @jpmckinney, I'm leaning toward making this a hypermedia style relationship so it is infinitely expandable based on the provided rel.

[jpmckinney]

Can you still have dir with HAL-like _links?

[tswicegood]

There's nothing saying you couldn't, but it probably wouldn't be needed. Instead, the rel property would define the type of relationship which is only going to be in a given direction. Here's a few fictious examples, drawing on real data that we have here @texastribune:

• Person who is a contributor to a Person who happens to be a Politician: rel: 'http://example.org/rels/contributor/', href: 'http://example.org/politician/123'
• Person who is an employee to an Organization that happens to be an Employer: rel: 'http://example.org/rels/employee/', href: 'http://example.org/employeers/123'
• Person who is an inmate at an Organization that happens to be a Prison: rel: 'http://example.org/rels/inmate/', href: 'http://example.org/prison/123'
• Organization who has hired an Organization that happens to be a LobbyingFirm: rel: 'http://example.org/rels/lobbyist/', href: 'http://example.org/lobbyists/123/'

One thing of note, the rel field does not have to be a full URL, just a unique URI. That means you can use full URLs and if that URL is under your control, it gives you the ability to ensure that nobody uses it to define something. My plan is to eventually create a @texas/rels repository that defines all of our schemas.