Web APIs are everywhere, giving developers an efficient way to interact with applications, services, and data. Well-designed APIs are a joy to use; poorly-designed APIs are cumbersome, confusing, and frustrating. The Design of EverydayAPIs is a practical, example packed guide to crafting extraordinary web APIs. Author Arnaud Lauret demonstrates fantastic design principles and techniques you can apply to both public and private web APIs.
The Design of Everyday APIs introduces you to the challenging and creative world of API design. In this experience-driven guide, you'll learn to think like an API designer, embracing effective practices for requirements gathering, blending business and technical goals, and adopting a consumer-first mindset. You'll master the lifecycle of web API design, including the all-important secure-by-design approach. This book teaches principles that can be applied in any style of API. Most examples are illustrated using REST and the OpenAPI specification.
Written for developers with minimal experience building and consuming APIs.
Key Features
- Characteristics of a well-designed API
- Explore the full API design lifecycle
- Designing user-oriented APIs
- Secure APIs by design
- Evolving existing APIs
- Validating your API designs
Arnaud Lauret is a software architect with 15 years of experience in the banking industry. He has spent a decade using, designing, and building APIs. He’s known on the web as the API Handyman (http://apihandyman.io) and is the creator the API Stylebook (http://apistylebook.com), a collection of resources for API designers.
Summary
The Design of Web APIs is a practical, example-packed guide to crafting extraordinary web APIs. Author Arnaud Lauret demonstrates fantastic design principles and techniques you can apply to both public and private web APIs.
About the technology
An API frees developers to integrate with an application without knowing its code-level details. Whether you’re using established standards like REST and OpenAPI or more recent approaches like GraphQL or gRPC, mastering API design is a superskill. It will make your web-facing services easier to consume and your clients—internal and external—happier.
About the book
Drawing on author Arnaud Lauret's many years of API design experience, this book teaches you how to gather requirements, how to balance business and technical goals, and how to adopt a consumer-first mindset. It teaches effective practices using numerous interesting examples.
What's inside
Characteristics of a well-designed API
User-oriented and real-world APIs
Secure APIs by design
Evolving, documenting, and reviewing API designs
About the reader
Written for developers with minimal experience building and consuming APIs.
About the author
A software architect with extensive experience in the banking industry, Arnaud Lauret has spent 10 years using, designing, and building APIs. He blogs under the name of API Handyman and has created the API Stylebook website.
