Essential REST API News for 2015/02/02 - REST API Tutorial

INTRODUCTION

This week, as with every week, the Internet was filled with API debates, diatribes, and flame wars that can be safely avoided. Somewhere within the maelstrom, however, there's always useful information of importance. Here's what we've found:

THIS PAST WEEK IN NEWS (2015/02/02)

API Design
Effective API communication is more than just returning a JSON document to the requester. On the MuleSoft blog Mike Stowe writes about "API Best Practices: Response Handling". Effective usage of HTTP Status codes helps ensure that developers understand exactly what is happening when the unexpected happens.

Hypermedia
Choosing an API linking strategy can be difficult. Sam Placette, in "Five JSON REST API Link Formats Compared" provides a fairly comprehensive, yet succinct, resource for people wrestling on how to craft their responses. While there are other formats beyond the scope of the piece, this gives a great overview of common requirements one should be aware of.

Big Picture
In "Replacing Middle Management with APIs", Peter Reinhardt looks at the ramifications of matching APIs with traditionally human-intensive tasks. Do these disrupted industries, like taxis (Uber) and residential cleaning (Homejoy), represent a future of encapsulation between systems developers and the individuals performing the work?

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

To get started creating your REST API, check out the fine resource at the intuitively named RESTAPITutorial. And if you have any questions or recommendations regarding something that you've seen here or elsewhere, let us know!

- Todd and Matthew