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APIs and the Interconnected Web
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Darcy Laycock
March 15, 2013
Programming
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280
APIs and the Interconnected Web
What APIs are, How APIs are increasingly important and how to make APIs that developers love.
Darcy Laycock
March 15, 2013
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Transcript
APIs - and - The Interconnected Web
I’m Darcy.
sutto@sutto.net @sutto github.com/sutto
Filter Squad and we make apps as Discovr
I make and consume APIs.
If I talk too fast, yell “slow down”.
The Promise
“The Open Web”
... but not as you know it.
We’re still in a walled garden.
The Web is more than HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
The Web is a giant graph of data.
We’re not just talking about open standards.
Making data accessible.
Hack & Build upon the shoulders of giants.
The ability to make our own “web”.
And to share that web with others.
What is an API?
“An application programming interface (API) is a protocol intended to
be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other”
None
Structured, Parseable Data.
None
{ "id": "723723854", "name": "Darcy Laycock", "first_name": "Darcy", "last_name": "Laycock",
"link": "https://www.facebook.com/darcy.laycock", "username": "darcy.laycock", "gender": "male", "locale": "en_GB" }
None
{ "login": "Sutto", "id": 553, "avatar_url": "https://truncated-url-goes-here/", "gravatar_id": "72d5f419e4a520ff4fe452400eac83d4", "url":
"https://api.github.com/users/Sutto", "html_url": "https://github.com/Sutto", "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Sutto/followers", "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Sutto/following", "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Sutto/gists{/gist_id}", "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Sutto/starred{/owner}{/repo}", "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Sutto/subscriptions", "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Sutto/orgs", "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Sutto/repos", "events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Sutto/events{/privacy}", "received_events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Sutto/received_events", "type": "User", "name": "Darcy Laycock", "company": "Filter Squad", "blog": "blog.ninjahideout.com", "location": "Perth, Western Australia", "email": "sutto+github@sutto.net", "hireable": false, "bio": null, "public_repos": 66, "followers": 210, "following": 209, "created_at": "2008-02-21T05:29:17Z", "updated_at": "2013-03-02T06:37:19Z", "public_gists": 112 }
Specifically for computer consumption.
An interface.
A promise.
The Web is not Web Sites.
The Web is HTTP.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/girliemac/sets/72157628409467125
A Brief History of APIs.
HTTP
1991: HTTP 0.9
1996: HTTP 1.0
1997: HTTP 1.1
A stateless protocol.
Built for Hypertext.
WS -
WSDL
SOAP
We Love XML!
We Hate XML!
None
Atom
Web 2.0
aka “The Rise of the API”
REST
representational state transfer
Roy Fielding
REST
“REST”
Hypermedia!
Rich Internet Applications
None
The Age of the App.
None
None
70% of what I do on my phone every day
relies on an API.
APIs for...
None
Single Page Apps
Companies building tools for building APIs.
Why APIs Matter
Estimated 2,400,000,000+ on the internet. (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm)
Estimated 1,000,000,000+ smart phones in use. (http://bit.ly/eotw13-api-smartphone)
Facebook http://developers.facebook.com/
http://graph.facebook.com/quairading
Google Geocoding http://bit.ly/eotw13-api-geocoding
None
Twilio http://twilio.com/
Source: http://www.twilio.com/voice
Amazon Web Services http://aws.amazon.com
None
SoundCloud http://developers.soundcloud.com
None
Tesla Model S API http://bit.ly/eotw13-api-tesla
None
None
AirPlay http://nto.github.com/AirPlay.html
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/istig/5749756038/
Perth Transit http://doc.perthtransit.com
None
IFTTT http://iftt.com
None
How to make developers love you.
Because good just isn’t enough.
K.I.S.S.
Do just enough.
Treat your API as a communication medium.
Model it on languages.
Nouns are objects your API can expose.
Verbs are things you can do to APIs.
Adjectives are metadata.
Think in Object Graphs.
Be pragmatic.
Be consistent.
Make it easy to debug.
apiary.io
None
Start with JSON.
Design for JSON.
Build out as needed.
Don’t reinvent auth.
None
Always version your API.
It means you won’t break promises changing things.
Header based vs Path based.
/v1/ or /1/ at the start of the url.
Understand HTTP.
Incredibly simple!* * for varying definitions of simple.
Request / Response
GET POST HEAD
PUT DELETE TRACE CONNECT OPTIONS
PATCH LINK UNLINK
Status Codes
200 201 404 403 422
Headers!
X-Something-Huh: yes
Client Server Gateway
Caching!
ETags vs Cache-Control
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/samuraislice/3318411982/
Documentation is critical.
http://developer.github.com/v3/users/
Easy to read docs == Hard to write docs.
Explain things.
Explain how to use it.
None
If it takes me a day to see results, I’ll
just give up.
The browser is just another client.
None
Hypermedia
None
Similar in design to the web itself.
HTTP is about Hypermedia.
HTTP is about Hypermedia.
HATEOS
Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State.
Similar in spirit to REST as in Roy Fielding’s thesis.
Self Evident.
Discoverable.
Consistent.
JSON-HAL http://stateless.co/hal_specification.html
Collection+JSON http://bit.ly/eotw13-api-cjson
Tends to simplify API design.
Practical Concerns.
In closing
APIs are everywhere.
APIs power the web.
APIs help make the hard, easy.
Good APIs need consistency.
Don’t just build APIs.
Build APIs people love.
Learn HTTP
Live HTTP
Love HTTP
Embrace Data.
Share Data.
Care about making good APIs
Because you can make good APIs.
Because you can design great APIs.
Because the web is more than just HTML, CSS and
JS.
None
Thanks! http://developer.github.com http://apiary.io http://www.apigee.com http://soundcloud.com http://twilio.com http://developers.soundcloud.com http://www.designinghypermediaapis.com http://apigee.com/about/content/web-api-design http://speakerdeck.com/sutto