APIs and the Interconnected Web

What APIs are, How APIs are increasingly important and how to make APIs that developers love.

Transcript

1. APIs - and - The Interconnected Web
2. I’m Darcy.
3. sutto@sutto.net @sutto github.com/sutto
4. Filter Squad and we make apps as Discovr
5. I make and consume APIs.
6. If I talk too fast, yell “slow down”.
7. The Promise
8. “The Open Web”
9. ... but not as you know it.
10. We’re still in a walled garden.
11. The Web is more than HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
12. The Web is a giant graph of data.
13. We’re not just talking about open standards.
14. Making data accessible.
15. Hack & Build upon the shoulders of giants.
16. The ability to make our own “web”.
17. And to share that web with others.
18. What is an API?
19. “An application programming interface (API) is a protocol intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other”
21. Structured, Parseable Data.
23. { "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" }
25. { "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 }
26. Specifically for computer consumption.
27. An interface.
28. A promise.
29. The Web is not Web Sites.
30. The Web is HTTP.
31. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/girliemac/sets/72157628409467125
32. A Brief History of APIs.
33. HTTP
34. 1991: HTTP 0.9
35. 1996: HTTP 1.0
36. 1997: HTTP 1.1
37. A stateless protocol.
38. Built for Hypertext.
39. WS -
40. WSDL
41. SOAP
42. We Love XML!
43. We Hate XML!
45. Atom
46. Web 2.0
47. aka “The Rise of the API”
48. REST
49. representational state transfer
50. Roy Fielding
51. REST
52. “REST”
53. Hypermedia!
54. Rich Internet Applications
56. The Age of the App.
59. 70% of what I do on my phone every day relies on an API.
60. APIs for...
62. Single Page Apps
63. Companies building tools for building APIs.
64. Why APIs Matter
65. Estimated 2,400,000,000+ on the internet. (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm)
66. Estimated 1,000,000,000+ smart phones in use. (http://bit.ly/eotw13-api-smartphone)
67. Facebook http://developers.facebook.com/
68. http://graph.facebook.com/quairading
69. Google Geocoding http://bit.ly/eotw13-api-geocoding
71. Twilio http://twilio.com/
72. Source: http://www.twilio.com/voice
73. Amazon Web Services http://aws.amazon.com
75. SoundCloud http://developers.soundcloud.com
77. Tesla Model S API http://bit.ly/eotw13-api-tesla
80. AirPlay http://nto.github.com/AirPlay.html
81. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/istig/5749756038/
82. Perth Transit http://doc.perthtransit.com
84. IFTTT http://iftt.com
86. How to make developers love you.
87. Because good just isn’t enough.
88. K.I.S.S.
89. Do just enough.
90. Treat your API as a communication medium.
91. Model it on languages.
92. Nouns are objects your API can expose.
93. Verbs are things you can do to APIs.
94. Adjectives are metadata.
95. Think in Object Graphs.
96. Be pragmatic.
97. Be consistent.
98. Make it easy to debug.
99. apiary.io
101. Start with JSON.
102. Design for JSON.
103. Build out as needed.
104. Don’t reinvent auth.
106. Always version your API.
107. It means you won’t break promises changing things.
108. Header based vs Path based.
109. /v1/ or /1/ at the start of the url.
110. Understand HTTP.
111. Incredibly simple!* * for varying definitions of simple.
112. Request / Response
113. GET POST HEAD
114. PUT DELETE TRACE CONNECT OPTIONS
115. PATCH LINK UNLINK
116. Status Codes
117. 200 201 404 403 422
118. Headers!
119. X-Something-Huh: yes
120. Client Server Gateway
121. Caching!
122. ETags vs Cache-Control
123. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/samuraislice/3318411982/
124. Documentation is critical.
125. http://developer.github.com/v3/users/
126. Easy to read docs == Hard to write docs.
127. Explain things.
128. Explain how to use it.
130. If it takes me a day to see results, I’ll just give up.
131. The browser is just another client.
133. Hypermedia
135. Similar in design to the web itself.
136. HTTP is about Hypermedia.
137. HTTP is about Hypermedia.
138. HATEOS
139. Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State.
140. Similar in spirit to REST as in Roy Fielding’s thesis.
141. Self Evident.
142. Discoverable.
143. Consistent.
144. JSON-HAL http://stateless.co/hal_specification.html
145. Collection+JSON http://bit.ly/eotw13-api-cjson
146. Tends to simplify API design.
147. Practical Concerns.
148. In closing
149. APIs are everywhere.
150. APIs power the web.
151. APIs help make the hard, easy.
152. Good APIs need consistency.
153. Don’t just build APIs.
154. Build APIs people love.
155. Learn HTTP
156. Live HTTP
157. Love HTTP
158. Embrace Data.
159. Share Data.
160. Care about making good APIs
161. Because you can make good APIs.
162. Because you can design great APIs.
163. Because the web is more than just HTML, CSS and JS.
165. 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