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Tag Archives: Design

Web API Design Part Two: The Origins of REST

14 Jan

Episode 87

What is REST, or what does it mean to be RESTful? It seems to mean something a bit different for everyone, when looking at various API implementations and their documentation. When examining different materials on the art of web API design, one eventually stumbles upon one particular name. Roy Fielding, a computer scientist who was member of the team behind HTTP 1.1 and URI specifications. During this undertaking he created a set of principles around HTTP object model that culminated in his PhD dissertation “Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures” published in 2000. Probably not too many people in software development industry read PhD dissertations, but I’ve decided to do that, and extract the essence in this article.

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First part of the thesis introduces various preliminary notions relevant in consequent parts. We learn the definition of Software Architecture and its elements including components, connectors and data. Then we proceed to Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on January 14, 2018 in API, Books, Technology

 

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Web API Design Part One: Tech and UX

12 Dec

Episode 86

When it comes to creating a piece of software, we need to ask ourselves three important questions. Why are we doing this? What are we doing? How are we going to do that? Software developers tend to focus on the last one, since technology seems to be their domain. However, the question that should be considered first is why, as Simon Senek pointed out in his book. Let’s explore those three question in the context of designing web APIs.

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In the second part of the article, we will take closer look at the “how” part from the user experience design point of view. The user will be a software developer consuming our API in this case.

Why?

For money, of course. Traditionally web applications earned money by serving their users data and functionality via some kind of front-end. The front-end was talking to the back-end and back-end was talking to the database. In order to satisfy growing needs, enrich user experience, and avoid reinventing the wheel, applications started to Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on December 12, 2017 in API, Technology

 

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