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Good Form
Building HyperMedia APIs with HTML
David Thomas Hume
@dthume
http://github.com/dthume
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APIs
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Contract Negotiation 2003
We’ll give you an API
Sure thing, where do we find the WSDL?
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RPC :-(
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REST
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Contract Negotiation 2013
We’ll give you an API
Sweet! Where do we POST the JSON?
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No content
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More RPC :-(
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“If the API is not being driven by hypertext,
then it cannot be RESTful and cannot be a
REST API. Period. Is there some broken
manual somewhere that needs to be fixed?”
- Roy Fielding
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Hypermedia APIs
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“Hypermedia Types are MIME media types
that contain native hyper-linking semantics
that induce application flow.”
- Mike Amundsen
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“The rest of REST”
- Jon Moore
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Hypermedia provides...
● Relationships
● Direction
● Flexibility
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HTML
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Data Types and Structures
● Lists () and Bags (![]()
, , )
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Semantics
● Relations (@rel)
● Microdata (@itemtype, @itemprop)
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Microdata
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Provides elements with semantics
● Adds meaning to structure
● Like the _type property common in JSON
● Can use existing “standard” types
○ http://schema.org
● Or use custom types if required
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Latitude:
40 deg 44 min 54.36 sec N
,
Longitude:
73 deg 59 min 8.5 dec W
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Latitude:
40 deg 44 min 54.36 sec N
,
Longitude:
73 deg 59 min 8.5 dec W
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Latitude:
40 deg 44 min 54.36 sec N
,
Longitude:
73 deg 59 min 8.5 dec W
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Latitude:
40 deg 44 min 54.36 sec N
,
Longitude:
73 deg 59 min 8.5 dec W
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Links
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Links provide flow
For example:
● Related resources
● List items
● Resources describing available actions
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Forms
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Query
Describe possible requests
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Query
Where the request can be sent
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Query
How the request can be made
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Query
What (media) type can be sent
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Query
What data can be sent...
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Query
...and what defaults can it have
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Query
What submissions can be made
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Baratheon
Greyjoy
Lannister
Targaryen
Stark
Express Choice
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Required Fields / Arity
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Query
Extend with relation semantics
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So we’re armed with
● Structure
● Relationships
● Semantics
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“A good REST API is like an ugly website”
- Rickard Oberg
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Show me the Markup
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Conclusions
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Working with HTML APIs
● CSS Selectors (jQuery, JSoup, Jerry etc.)
● XML (if you must: DOM/SAX etc.)
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The Good
● Explore / Debug / Test - Use a browser
○ No firebug needed! (though still useful)
● Decent support for most languages
● Specs for HTML itself
○ Still need to document @rel and @itemtype use
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The Bad
● Easy to forget target audience (machines)
● Spec weaknesses:
○ No PUT or DELETE support (yet)
○ Use of @data-rel on s not standard
○ Value of s with @itemprop not standard
● Arguably verbose
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Application-as-API
● Users want their UI on top of your services
● And they want everything your app can do
● Make the app the API
● Works well with ROCA
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References
● http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-
hypertext-driven
● https://github.com/Comcast/htmlapi-client-python
● http://codeartisan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/using-html-as-
media-type-for-your-api.html
● http://roca-style.org/
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Questions?