API Driven Applications

API Driven Applications An introduction to using Ruby (and Rails)

for building API-only applications.

Hi, I’m Darcy.

GitHub: sutto Twitter: @sutto Email: [email protected]

Filter Squad. and we make...

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Consuming & Producing APIS

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What you should know and love.

Distinct API apps

Build services

Embrace HTTP

Embrace HTTP Love

Cache-Control Expires ETag Vary

Efficient Validation http://rtomayko.github.com/rack-cache/ faq#efficient-validation

Varnish + Rack-Cache

Be consistent, especially in responses.

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source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/variationblogr/6658533167/, Used under CC.

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/variationblogr/6658533167/, Used under CC.

Simple to learn, explore.

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Use your browser

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Versioning

A Public API vs Mobile Applications vs Your Web Apps

(e.g. Backbone)

Header versioning vs URI versioning

Building APIs

Grape https://github.com/intridea/grape

Grape is a REST-like API micro- framework for Ruby. It

is built to complement existing web application frameworks such as Rails and Sinatra by providing a simple DSL to easily provide APIs.

Grape is a REST-like API micro- framework for Ruby. It

is built to complement existing web application frameworks such as Rails and Sinatra by providing a simple DSL to easily provide APIs.

It has built-in support for common conventions such as multiple

formats, subdomain/prefix restriction, and versioning.

It has built-in support for common conventions such as multiple

formats, subdomain/prefix restriction, and versioning.

Standardised Error Handling

Simple Resource Conversion

Minimal Dependencies

Rails::API https://github.com/spastorino/rails-api

“Rails::API is a subset of a normal Rails application, created

for applications that don't require all functionality that a complete Rails application provides.”

“Rails::API is a subset of a normal Rails application, created

for applications that don't require all functionality that a complete Rails application provides.”

Take Rails, Skip what you don’t need.

Familiar setup, Similar controllers, No view layer.

No cookies, No flash, No sessions, No front end stuff.

gem install rails-api rails-api new my_api

Rocket Pants https://github.com/filtersquad/rocket_pants

Built on Rails like Rails-API, Both released around the same

time.

RocketPants::Base

URI-based versioning

Automatic Header Metadata (X-Api-*)

HTTP Link Headers

Opinionated responses

Smart error handling / mapping

TL;DR: Consider Grape, Rails::API or Rocket Pants.

More Reading: “Designing Hypermedia APIs” by Steve Klabnik The Echonest

Developer Documentation For building APIs, API Smith Want to read my versioning argument? See http://discovr.info/2012/05/on-apis-and- versioning/

TYVM. Questions? Colour Pallette: “Wasabi Suicide”. http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/482416/Wasabi_Suicide