Great APIs

My lightning talk on one aspect of what I think makes a great API. Given at IPRUG lightning talks, and later at a work event.

Transcript

1. Great APIs
   @ChrisSinjo
   IPRUG – 05/03/2013
   

   View Slide

2. A piece of a larger talk
   

   View Slide

3. Caution: Opinions ahead
   

   View Slide

4. What is “great”?
   Nice high level APIs
   Powerful, underlying
   toolset
   Spend most
   time here
   Go here when
   I’m doing
   something
   awesome
   

   View Slide

5. Git calls this “porcelain” and
   “plumbing”
   

   View Slide

6. Example: get something over
   HTTP
   

   View Slide

7. In my mind (psuedocode)
   # Gives me the response contents as a string
   print HttpLibrary.get('http://ifconfig.me/ip').body
   

   View Slide

8. In Ruby (with HTTParty)
   puts HTTParty.get('http://ifconfig.me/ip').body
   

   View Slide

9. Caution: Serious, heavy-duty,
   enterprise language for people
   with beards ahead
   

   View Slide

10. In Java (with commonly
    recommended HttpClient)
    HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
    HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet("http://ifconfig.me/ip");
    HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget);
    HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
    if (entity != null) {
    InputStream myIpStream = entity.getContent();
    try {
    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(
    new InputStreamReader(myIpStream, Charset.forName("UTF-8")));
    String nextLine;
    while ((nextLine = reader.readLine()) != null) {
    System.out.println(nextLine);
    }
    } finally {
    myIpStream.close();
    }
    }
    

    View Slide

11. In Java (with fluent-hc wrapper)
    String ip = Request.Get("http://ifconfig.me/ip")
    .execute().returnContent().asString();
    System.out.println(ip);
    

    View Slide

12. This isn’t a language thing
    At least not entirely (syntactic flexibility aside)
    

    View Slide

13. Community focus?
    Broadly:
    Java: ↑ plumbing
    Ruby: ↑ porcelain
    

    View Slide

14. There is more to great APIs
    than this
    

    View Slide

15. Questions?
    

    View Slide