My solution does not have to add a lot of extra server calls - it all depends on the caching strategy you choose. For example, if you use maxAge, you would only be adding one extra request per new state created, or per new fetch; all subsequent fetches for the same state would automatically pull from the browser cache.
To satisfy the linking requirement, I would redesign my solution to just POST the state to /items/pageState, and get back a URI that represents only that state (which can be shared across all users). Combine this with the maxAge, and yes, you would have to make more requests, but the extra overhead would still be way less significant than adding a link to an image on every page (especially in terms of bandwidth)
But, chacun à son goût! Everyone prefers their own tradeoffs :)
My solution does not have to add a lot of extra server calls - it all depends on the caching strategy you choose. For example, if you use maxAge, you would only be adding one extra request per new state created, or per new fetch; all subsequent fetches for the same state would automatically pull from the browser cache.
To satisfy the linking requirement, I would redesign my solution to just POST the state to /items/pageState, and get back a URI that represents only that state (which can be shared across all users). Combine this with the maxAge, and yes, you would have to make more requests, but the extra overhead would still be way less significant than adding a link to an image on every page (especially in terms of bandwidth)
But, chacun à son goût! Everyone prefers their own tradeoffs :)