Is it problematic that Spring Data REST exposes entities via REST resources without using DTOs?

Question

In my limited experience, I\'ve been told repeatedly that you should not pass around entities to the front end or via rest, but instead to use a DTO.

Doesn\'t Spring Dat

Answer 1

Spring Data REST enables a very fast way to prototype and create a REST API based on a database structure. We're talking about minutes vs days, when comparing with other programming technologies.

The price you pay for that, is that your REST API is tightly coupled to your database structure. Sometimes, that's a big problem. Sometimes it's not. It depends basically on the quality of your database design and your ability to change it to suit the API user needs.

In short, I consider Spring Data REST as a tool that can save you a lot of time under certain special circumstances. Not as a silver bullet that can be applied to any problem.