NB: This is two new chapters for the future Section III ‘The API Product’ of the API book I’m currently writing. I’d appreciate if you share it on reddit, for I personally can’t do that. API as a Product There are two important statements regarding APIs viewed as products. APIs are proper products, just…

Historical period: the 2nd — 10th centuries CE Scene of action: Europe north of the Apennines and the Pyrenees Paradoxically, it was Romans who left a lot of material evidence related to beer production. At the outskirts of the Empire, brewing continued on, both for locals and Roman legions they…

This are two last chapters of the ‘Backwards Compatibility’ Section of my book on API design. The entire Section is now ready and published Interfaces as a Universal Pattern Let us summarize what we have written in the three previous chapters. Extending API functionality is realized through abstracting: the entity nomenclature is to be reinterpreted…

In previous chapters, we have tried to outline theoretical rules and illustrate them with practical examples. However, understanding the principles of change-proof API design requires practice above all things. An ability to anticipate future growth problems comes from a handful of grave mistakes once made. …

As a proper geek I deeply love several seemingly unconnected things: APIs and programming in general (of which I’m writing book №1); classical music, or rather historical recordings of Viennese classicists(of which I’m talking in my Telegram channel in Russian); fantasy and science fiction books (of which I have an…

No other technology in the IT history generated as many fierce debates as REST did. The most remarkable thing is that disputants usually demonstrate totally no understanding of the subject under discussion. Let’s start with the very beginning. In 2000 Roy Fielding, one of the HTTP and URI specs authors…

NB: this is an expanded and updated compilation of two previous publications. When all entities, their responsibilities, and relations to each other are defined, we proceed to developing the API itself. We are to describe the objects, fields, methods, and functions nomenclature in details. …

NB: this is a draft of two new chapters for ‘The API Book’ I’m writing. Strong coupling and related problems In previous chapters we tried to outline theoretical rules and principles, and illustrate them with practical examples. However, understanding principles of change-proof API design requires practice like nothing before. An ability to anticipate future growth…

1. Use globally unique identifiers It’s considered good form to use globally unique strings as entity identifiers, either semantic (i.e. “lungo” for beverage types) or random ones (i.e. UUID-4). It might turn out to be extremely useful if you need to merge data from several sources under single identifier. In…