Building good Web APIs

Talks about the importance of good web API, show best practices, show worst practices (and argue why they're bad), and hopefully convince the audience to pay attention whenc reating APIs even if "nobody but devs can see it".

Transcript

1. the making of
   !
   A good Web API
   !
   how and why
   Senko Rašić, Good Code
   

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2. We’re hiring!
   

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4. Image credit: agileapps.co.uk
   

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5. RFC2616
   

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6. GET /service?cmd=delete&type=author&id=5
   !
   GET /authors/
   HEAD /authors/5
   !
   POST /authors/
   PUT /authors/5
   PATCH /authors/5
   DELETE /authors/5
   

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7. 200 OK!
   201 Created!
   202 Accepted!
   204 No Content!
   !
   400 Bad Request!
   401 Not Authorized!
   403 Forbidden!
   404 Not Found!
   405 Method Not Allowed!
   !
   503 Service Unavailable
   

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8. Cookie: sessionid=249d67c74be
   !
   !
   Authorization: token efdf537eb7
   

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9. HTTPS
   

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10. lock down your API framework
    

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11. /authors ↔ /books/
    

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12. /api/v1/foo
    /api/v2/foo
    

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14. Consistency
    Backwards compatibility
    Use HTTP(S)
    !
    Developer experience matters
    

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15. Web of Zygiella spiders after high doses of caffeine!
    Image credit: P. N. Witt, Ch. F. Reed & D. B. Peakall, “A Spider's Web”
    Thank you
    

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