If it’s part of the Requirements that the frontend should handle “No results found” differently from “Not authorized”, even if that’s just by showing an icon, then ach list of stuff which might or not be authorized should have a flag signalling that.

(This is simply data analysis - if certain information is supposed to be shown to the user it should come from somewhere and hence the frontend must get it from somewhere, and the frontend code trying to “deduce it” from data it gets is generally prone to the kind of problem you just got because unless explicitly agreed and documented, sooner or later some deduction done by one team is not going to match what the other team is doing. Generally it’s safer just to explicitly pass that info in a field for that purpose to avoid frontend-backend integration issues).

Authorization logic is almost always a responsibility of the backend (for various reasons, including proper security practices) and for the frontend it’s generally irrelevant why it’s authorized or not, unless you have to somehow display per-list the reason for a it being authorized or not, which would be a strange UI design IMHO - generally there’s but a flag in the main part of the UI and a separate page/screen with detailed authorization information - if the user really wants to dig down into the “why” - which would be using different API call just to fill in that page/screen.

So if indeed it is required that the frontend knows if an empty result is due to “Not Authorized” rather than “No results found” (a not uncommon design, though generally a good UI design practice is to simply not even give the user access to listing things the user is not authorized to see rather than let the user chose them and then telling them they’re not authorized to do it, as the latter design is more frustrating for users) that info should be an explicit entry in what comes from the backend.

The JSON is indeed different in both cases, but if handled correctly it shouldn’t matter.

That said, IMHO, if all those 3 fields in your example should be present, the backend should be putting a list on all 3 fields even if for some the list is empty, rather than a null in some - it doesn’t matter what the JSON is since even at the Java backend level, a List variable with a “null” is not the same as a List variable with a List of length 0 - null vs empty list is quite a common source of mistakes even within the code of just the one tier, though worse if it ends up in API data.

Who is wrong or right ultimately depends on the API design having marked those fields as mandatory or optional.

That sounds like an error in the specification of the client-server API or an erroneous implementation on the server side for the last version: nothing should be signaled via presence or absence of fields when using JSON exactly because, as I described in my last post, the standard with JSON is that stuff that is not present should be ignore (i.e. it has no meaning at all) for backwards compatibility, which breaks if all of the sudden presence or absence are treated as having meaning.

Frankly that there isn’t a specific field signalling authorized/not-authorized leads me to believe that whomever has designed that API isn’t exactly experienced at that level of software design: authorization information should be explicit, not implicit, otherwise you end up with people checking for not-in-spec side effects like you did exactly for that reason (i.e. “is the no data being returned because of user not authorized or because there was indeed no data to retunr?”), which is prone to break since not being properly part of the spec means any of the teams working on it might interpret things differently and/or change them at any moment.

If I remember it correctly, per the JSON definition when a key is present but not expected it should be ignored.

The reason for that is to maintain compatibility between versions: it should be possible to add more entries to the data and yet old versions of the software that consumes that data should still continue to operate if all the data they’re designed to handle is still there and still in the correct format.

Sure, that’s not a problem in the blessed world of web-based frontends where the user browser just pulls the client code from the server so frontend and backend are always in synch, but is a problem for all other kinds of frontend out there where the life-cycle of the client application and the server one are different - good luck getting all your users to update their mobile apps or whatever whenever you want to add functionality (and hence data in client-server comms) to that system.

(Comms API compatibility is actually one of the big problems in client-server systems development)

So it sounds like an issue with the way your JavaScript library handles JSON or your own implementation not handling per-spec the presence of data which you don’t use.

Granted, if the server side dev only makes stuff for your frontend, then he or she needs not be an asshole about it and can be more accomodating. If however that data also has to serve other clients, then I’m afraid you’re the one in the wrong since you’re demanding that the backwards compatibility from the JSON spec itself is not used by anybody else - which as I pointed out is a massive problem when you can’t guarantee that all client apps get updated as soon as the server gets updated - because you couldn’t be arsed to do your implementation correctly.

I’m sorry but unwaveringly supporting a nation ruled by ethno-Fascists when they’re committing Genocide because of the ethnicity of the majority and the leaders there is the same old extreme racism as in the old days and passing laws to punish anybody who criticizes that ethno-Fascist nation is the same authoritarianism in defense of Fascists claiming to represent an ethnicity as in the old days.

If the mindset that was the foundation of Nazism had changed in Germany we would neither be seeing such an extreme version of supporting a regime that claimes to be supporting some people because of their ethnicity (even against the will of many of those very people, who again and again point out that Israel and the dominant ideology there does not represent them), nor would be we be seeing the use of the Law to force everybody else to either go along with it or shut up.

A Germany where the power elites had learned the Humanitarian take of “never again” (i.e. “never again shall this be done to anybody”) rather kept the racism going and hence using a racist version of it (i.e. “never again shall Germans do this to Jews”), would not be doing this, not even close.

What’s going on in Germany is not merely “crushing guilt of what happened in WWII”, it’s the racism and authoritarianism coming out of hiding with the excuse that “It’s for the Jews rather than for the Arian Race, so it’s alright”.

Well, they seem to be replenishing their submersible fleet in the Black Sea with lots of new under water vessels: for every ship they lose they get a new sub…

Also a lot of the late Soviet Union military technology came from Ukraine, plus their military were also trained in the same kind of school of thought as Russia and still know it.

So it makes sense that, when push came to shove, the Ukranians would fast come up with asymetric war solutions against Russia, that Russia wouldn’t be as fast in effectivelly countering them and Ukraine would be quicker at developing new or adjusted solutions once Russia found a counter (or, more generally, that Ukraine would remain ahead of Russian in the cycle were each side develops a counter to the other side’s counters).

Had Russia’s initial blietzkrieg attack worked, it would’ve been a different story, but at this stage it makes sense that Ukraine has the technological edge, not just in the weaponry it gets from the West but also in their own weapons development, especially now that it has much better AA to protect the installations far away from the frontlines working on weapons tech.

Russian Propaganda: “Our Glorious Nation has acquired a brand new submersible to help its fight against NATO in Ukraine”

Clearly the profound racism never disappeared, otherwise the German power elites wouldn’t “unwaveringly support” a nation because of the ethnicity of the majority of its people and its leaders: the more visible artifacts of ancient germanic symbols, goose stepping and the brown shirts might be gone but the thinking that some people are more worthy than others purelly because of their ethnicity is still just as strong.

Additionally, that the German authorities are now going so far as shown in this and other news in support of the ethno-Fascists of a specific ethnicity, also indicates that the authoritarian tendencies too are alive and well in the mindset of the German power elites.

It looks a lot like the foundations of Nazism are alive, well and returning to prominence, with a different symbology and façade, but still the same view of humans as ethnics and the same authoritarian forceful imposition of a race-based view of the worth of human beings on others.

It’s actually quite scary to watch from the outside as Germany goes back to overtly using force to suppress dissent on its power elite’s racial supremacist views for the benefit of an extreme form of ethno-Fascism, even if this time around it’s not the Arian Race that’s being “supported”.

The anti-semites are probably ecstatic at the whole linking of a nation that commits Genocide and kills little children with snipers, bombs and starvation to the entire Jewish ethnicity.

It makes it incredibly easy for them to grab some particularly nasty action of the state of Israel as an example and say “See, that’s how Jews are like”.

Non-Jews going around telling other people, including Jews, that people who mass murder civilians, including very purposefully children, journalists and medical personnel, represent the Jewsih Religion and hence implying those actions are Jewishness, is the most antisemitic thing around.

The antisemitism is the linking of a specific nation state and its disgusting actions to an entire ethnicity even when members of that ethnicity very overtly and explicitly disavow that link.

Germany’s actions have all the hallmarks of German “tradition”: assuming that Jews are all the same, telling Jews what Jewishness is, implying there are good Jews (who follow Germany’s definition of Jewishness) and bad Jews (who don’t).

Clearly Nazi thinking was never eliminated amongst the German elites, it just got its lists of “good races” and “bad races” updated.

I don’t remember ever hearing “Brit” or “Brits” being used for immigrants in Britain and definitelly heard it used for when Britons are living abroad as immigrants (in fact when living in The Netherlands I had some colleagues who were in their own words “Brits”)…

Always thought it was just another way of saying British and not going into the specifics of which nation in Britain did people come from (the whole “nations” thing for people abroad is generally irrelevant or even misunderstood).

Residence does not suffice: you’re a Briton if you have British nationality (no matter of which of the 4 nations) so people have to apply for British nationality after at least a certain time as resident (5 years for Indians and a few other nationals, 10 for most foreigners) plus there are other mechanisms to get British nationality (for example, for descendants - resident or otherwise - of people born in Northern Ireland).

I lived for over a decade in Britain as an EU citizen but I’m not and never was a Briton since I never applied for British nationality.

It’s my impression that at least in the German-speaking cantoons the Swiss are the most “rules are rules are rules” of the German-speaking people.

Had this happened in Britain, it would’ve been swept under the rug since over there de facto and probably since forever, the rules apply very differently depending on the “importance” of people. (In fact I wouldn’t at all be surprised if this was also happening in Britain and in there it was simply swept under the rug).

I don’t think “rules are rules are rules” is a generic “honor” thing, rather it’s the more specific norms of “social responsibility” (i.e. responsibility towards others).

Coming from a country which had a Fascist dictatorship until the 70s, I’ve started calling Zionism ethno-Facism, because it’s a far more rabidly racist strain than most Fascist dictatorships and unlike almost all of the others which were mainly Nationalist, claims to represent an entire ethnicity and justifies even their used of the most extreme violence as some kind life or death fight for the defense of their ethnicity.

Fascism as seens in places like Spain, Portugal, Greece or even Italy was mainly Nationalist (still authocratic, repressive and violent) and never anywhere as racist or violent as the kind of Fascism that includes claims of racial superiority and representing a whole ethnicity.

Amongst Fascists in Europe it’s only the Nazis that claimed, like the Zionists do, that they represented an entire ethnicity, who similarly committed extreme genocidal violence against specific ethnicities whilst claiming it was all in defense of their own ethnicity and who in the same way claimed than critci sm of their acts was being against that ethnicity.

Any Fascism is bad, but ethno-Fascism adds to it the whole layer of ethnicity and hence is far more cold, calously violent and genocidal when it comes to other ethnicities - think Ku-Klux-Klan crossed with Fascism.

Pretty much the entirety of the Zionist propaganda follows the same ethno-Fascist lines as the Nazis stuff, from the “chosen people” and them claiming to represent a whole ethnicity to their claims that their agressive murderous violence along ethnic lines is “defense” and even calling anybody who criticizes their violence as being against their race, in the case of Zionists by calling the “anti-semites” whilst the Nazis would say that such critics were “against the Arian Race”.

Most of what the Zionists say is just Nazi propaganda with “Arian Race” replaced by “Jewish People” and “against the Arian Race” replaced by “anti-semite”.

So one kind a member of an ethno-Fascist ideology - a Zionist - directly quoting the leader of another ethno-Fascist ideology such as Hiltler, is not at all surprising.

Well, it massivelly depends on social class - the higher it goes, the worst it gets - plus it’s more of an English thing.

Even in England, for example a working class scouse (somebody from Liverpool) is unlikelly to be a two faced bastard:

Somewhat violent? - possibly.

Prejudiced, maybe even racist? - quite likely.

A bastard? - you can ask his mom but you’ll probably get punched.

Two faced? - not likely.

IMHO it’s unsurprising that back in the days when social mobility was still decent in Britain and young working class lads actually had a real chance to make it in the Arts, the country made some of its best music and had its most iconic bands - you’re not going to get something like Punk from kids born with a golden spoon in their mouths.

It’s quite possibly that kind of character was also present in the upper classes of several countries in Europe.

But in the Present Day in Europe as far I know as only the English still widelly celebrate that kind of personna and protray it as a core English thing.

Yeah, “public” in the same way as the The Ritz is “public” - anybody can get a rooms there if the can afford the £700 a night.

The rest of the World calls that “private”, because de facto they are not for the public.

I’ve lived in a couple of countries in Europe, including over a decade in Britain.

In general the British elites, mainly high middle-class and the very wealthy, are the single most fake people in Europe and they’re actually brought up thinking that’s exactly how people should behave - what they call there “Public Schools” (which, in an interesting demonstration of the exact principles I describe below, are in fact private schools rather than state-funded) which are frequented by the scions of the upper and upper-middle classes often teach kids this kind of behaviour, especially the more “elite” (in the sense of being for the children of the very rich) ones.

The “English Gentleman” stereotype is not at all a person who does the right thing, it’s a person who projects the right impression, something altogether different.

So it’s absolutelly normal for British Politics to have things like two seemingly opposite policies, one done with great fanfarre but de facto low effectiveness for the purpose of projecting the right impression and another which is done much more quietly and more effectivelly to achieving the true desired aims of the politicians over there (who at the moment, are all people who were born in wealth). Another very common strategy is to do something that overtly seems to produce a certain, positive, result but is done in such as way that the side-effects are much more powerful that the primary effect and produce a very different result (which at a later data, and adding insult to injury, is claimed to have been “totally unexpected”).

Every single piece of policy from Britain (as the politicans are all from upper middle and upper class) as well as all the stuff done for the Press by members of the upper classes (especially the older landed kind), namelly the Royal Family, should be treated as a theatrical performance and not at all believed to be what first appearences make it seem.

Having lived in the UK and having been a victim of racism myself for being from continental Europe and having heard the stories of friends and acquaintances who were much more victimized by racism in Britain than I ever was due to the color of their skin or coming from a Muslim country, I always found it hilarious when both the rightwing and liberal Press kept harping on an on about Britain not being racist.

Anti-semitism was next to nothing in Britain compared to what people of color, Muslims and at some point even Poles suffered even in the more open minded cities such as London.

The obcession with anti-semitism was all about politics (as I pointed above, such accusations were so twisted and abused when trying to bring a Leftie, Corby, down as head of the Labour party that at one point policians, the rightwing Press and the liberal Press were implying that a Jewish Holocaust Survivor was an anti-semite to taint Corby by association) and not at all about fairness of treatment or reducing the victimization of people because of their ethnicity.