REST
A collection of articles about REST – a commonly-cited and frequently misunderstood (IMHO) architectural style for APIs.
April 25th, 2018
What makes a REST API mobile-friendly?
REST API design is dependent on the clients that will be consuming the resources – APIs that are designed for server-based integrations tend to look quite different from those that are designed to support mobile applications.
March 20th, 2018
GraphQL will not solve your API design problems
If you find REST APIs difficult to design, develop and scale, then your experience with GraphQL is not going to be any easier.
June 4th, 2017
Can consumer-driven contracts manage breaking change in microservice integrations?
One of the more enduring problems with service integration is managing change in service interfaces. Consumer-driven contracts can help to detect breaking changes, but this visibility comes at a price.
December 12th, 2015
Pragmatic REST: APIs without hypermedia and HATEOAS
If you’re not using HATEAOS then you’re not using REST. That’s true enough, but in many cases adopting HATEOAS doesn’t deliver much value beyond architectural purity.
October 15th, 2015
Using the REST API connector as a data source in Informatica Cloud
It can be pretty straightforward to read REST API resources using Informatica Cloud – so long as you know which levers to pull and your data is in a sympathetic format.
September 27th, 2015
REST APIs don’t need a versioning strategy – they need a change strategy
Change in an API is inevitable. Attempting to manage this change through version numbering usually creates more problems than it solves.
April 20th, 2015
Microservices, REST and the distributed big ball of mud
The “big ball of mud” describes a system architecture that is sprawling, sloppy and haphazard. That’s precisely how you’d describe some emerging microservice architectures.
January 4th, 2015
Why REST is not a silver bullet for service integration
REST is sometimes described as the next “evolutionary step” in service integration. The problem is that REST provides too much of a “dumb pipe” to support genuinely decoupled, fault-tolerant service integration.
November 22nd, 2014
The RESTafarian flame wars – common disagreements over REST API design
Debates on the finer points of REST can bring out the worst in people as they seek to define what is and is not “RESTful”. In most cases the debate is unlikely to make the difference between success and failure for an API.
October 15th, 2014
Parsing OData queries for decoupled data entities in ASP.NET WebApi
If you adopt OData you don’t have to expose the entire range of query functionality for every resource. You can use the OData libraries to parse queries and interrogate data directly.
August 21st, 2014
Messaging shouldn’t be used for queries
When developers first start using messaging they can be tempted to use it as a brand new hammer for every nail. Messaging brings a lot to the party, but it isn’t necessarily a suitable transport for fast, synchronous query processing.
July 22nd, 2014
Using a tolerant reader for web service integrations in .Net
Using version tolerant readers can help you to cope with changes to service contracts though this does come at the expense of a weaker contract. The approach is more appropriate for fluid services that are prone to frequent change.
April 21st, 2014
Hackable URIs may look nice, but they don’t have much to do with REST and HATEOAS
Structured and “Hackable” URIs are a staple part of SEO-friendly websites. Although developers generically expect to see them in HTTP-based APIs, they should be irrelevant to consumers of a fully RESTful API that leverages HATEOAS.
October 19th, 2013
Can APX help in developing usable and accessible APIs?
Given how important APIs have become in driving the reach of applications and services, it’s surprising how little investment is made in the usability of APIs as opposed to UIs. Perhaps the principals and techniques used by UX should be applied to developing more effective APIs…
June 17th, 2013
Netflix has abandoned OData – does the standard have a future without an ecosystem?
Netflix have closed their OData catalogue and EBay seem to have quietly put their implementation out to grass. With a shrinking ecosystem and no marquee services, does Microsoft’s data standard have a future?
December 17th, 2012
REST services may not have standards, but they should follow conventions
REST is more of an architectural style than a set of standards. That said, a service should follow certain conventions if it is to be predictable and simple to work with.