Through My Lenses

APIs – The Basics

• application programming interface
• 2 types – RESTful and RPC
• offers ability to share data and functionality
• centralize functionality

Possible Problems

• poor planning can cause poor usability
• needs to be accessible across multiple langauges
• variable scope may not exist / be accurate
• documentation needs to be extensible
• security can be tested/attacked

The biggest security threat to your API

• you!

Documentation

description, parameters, example call, example response, error code

Great Examples

twitter, flickr, digg, openOffice

Development Process of an API (ideal)

1. create use case
2. document
3. test documentation
4. code API
5. test
6. hack
7. go to 4

Creating a RESTful-ish API

• URL parsing
• request type parsing
• XML responses
• requires authentication
• error handling

Resources

InfoQ article – REST Intro – infoq.com/articles/rest-introduction