This document discusses APIs and REST APIs. It defines an API as an interface that allows applications to communicate with each other, and REST as an architectural style for APIs that uses HTTP requests to GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE data. The document outlines best practices for REST APIs including using resources and representations, embracing the HTTP standard, and following constraints like being stateless and cacheable. It provides examples of popular REST APIs and recommends documenting, securing, and versioning APIs according to standards.

1. Rest for the Web!
The new buzzword in town
Nitesh Oswal
www.niteshoswal.me

2. APIs: What & Why?

3. What is an API?
Application Programming Interface
An API is the interface implemented by
an application which allows us to
communicate with it.

4. What is REST?
REpresentational State Transfer
●
Architectural Style
●
Not a standard, unlike SOAP
●
Modern best practice
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Developed closely with HTTP 1.1

5. Constraints
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Client – Server Independance
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Stateless
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Cacheable
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Layered System
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Code in demand
●
Uniform Interface

6. Examples
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Twitter
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Dropbox
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Instagram
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Github
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Paypal
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Soundcloud
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Google+
●
...

7. Trends
Source: http://blog.programmableweb.com/2011/03/08/3000-web-apis/
3,000 Web APIs: Trends From a Quickly Growing Directory

8. REST APIs: ?
Any API which conforms with the REST
constraints for data transfer is called a
REST API!

9. Top 3 Qualities
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Intuitive
–
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No surprises, easy to learn
Documented
–
–
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Simple answers to simple questions
References, tutorials & quick start guides
Opinionated
–
CamelCase, ids, responses, paginated etc.

10. Resources,
Representations,
Metadata

11. Resource
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Nouns not verbs
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Could be any information
●
They tell you what they ‘are’

12. Representation
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Sequence of bytes
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Described by representation metadata
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Less precisely, a document, an entity, or an
instance

13. Embrace HTTP
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GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE
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Explorable with simple tools

14. Embrace HTTP
GET /document
GET /document/1
POST /document
PUT /document/1
DELETE /document/1
Retrieve all documents
Retrieve a specific
document #1
Create a new document
Update an existing
document #1
Delete an existing
document #1

15. Example

16. Best Practices
security
Https!
base URLs
api.mycompany.com
serialization
json
timestamps
ISO 8601 & UTC
caching
Etag & Last modified
gzip
Always & pretty print responses
versioning
/v1/ OR /v1.1/

17. Questions?

18. Thank you