Question

I have two REST-ful resources on my server:

/someEntry/{id}
Response:
{
    someInfoAboutEntry: ...,
    entryTypeUrl: "/entryType/12345"
}

and

/entryType/{id}
Response:
{
    someInfoAboutEntryType: ...
}

The entryTypeUrl is used to fetch additional data about the type of this entry from the different URL. It will be bound to some “Detailed information” button near each entry. There can be many (let’s say 100) entries, while there are only 5 types (so most entries point to same entryTypeUrl.

I’m building a Javascript client to access those resources. Should I cache entryType results in my Javascript code, or should I rely on the browser to cache the data for me and dispatch XHR requests every time user clicks the “Detailed information” button?

As far as I see it, both approaches should work just fine. The second one (always dispatching requests) will result in clearer code though. Should I stick to it, or are there some points I’m not aware of?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I would definitely let the browser manage the caching, rather than writing a custom caching layer yourself.

This way you have less code to write and maintain, and you allow the server to dictate (via its HTTP headers) whether the response should be cached or not. If you write your own caching code you remove the ability to refetch stale data – which you would get for free from the browser.