Net API Notes for 2019/05/09
While I continue to prep for some serious conference hashtag camping mid-month, some great articles continue to pop up on my radar. Without further ado, here are the notable Net API Notes for this week in May.
NOTES
API INTERACTION TYPES IN A MICROSERVICE ARCHITECTURE
Matt McLarty is on a tear. He follows up his appearance in the notes a few weeks ago with another post, this time on "API Interaction Types in Microservice Architectures". The number of architectural possibilities can be overwhelming when starting new development. However, Matt gently introduced the forces at play when creating reactive microservices. Knowing when to apply synchronous and asynchronous interactions to solving the problem at hand requires knowing how to deploy "queries", "commands", and "events" interaction types. This piece helps you make the right decision.
IMPROVING DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE WITH POSTMAN COLLECTIONS
Typeform has released an updated Postman collection for their API experience. On the surface, that may be enough to warrant a mention in the milestones (maybe). However, Alba Rincón went above and beyond with the article, "Building Typeform's Collection - A Guide to Automating API Documentation using OpenAPI and Postman".
I love the story of how creating the Postman Collection was used as a forcing function to improve problematic areas of their OpenAPI descriptions. There's also some insight into handling additional extensions and authorization during translation. Finally, the vision set forth for how to utilize automation is, as the kids say, [[chef's kiss]].
OVERCOMING OAUTH'S LIMITED SCOPE(S)
OAuth is a recognized standard for APIs to do token based authorization. However, it can have its limitations, as described by Torsten Lodderstedt in his piece "Why We Need to Re-Think OAuth Scopes". Torsten not only does a great job of setting up the problem but then demonstrates a number of approaches to solving it.
I know many might find the plumbing behind responsible access to functionality secondary to the functionality itself. However, there's some compelling problem solving on display here that, I imagine, lends itself to quite a few issues others might have seen.
API GATEWAYS AND SERVICE MESHES
APIs are powerful because they are an abstraction of an interface from a specific implementation. What is less apparent is how to lessen the coupling of the interface from the networking infrastructure. As teams continue to increase the number of APIs (via a pattern like microservices) and deployment complexity (say, to the cloud) the problem has only grown.
API Gateway and Service Meshes, as described by Daniel Bryant, are instrumental for achieving this idealized loose coupling. This isn't simple stuff, but if you're challenged with exploding numbers of cloud servers that are continuing to have configuration files managed by hand, definitely give this comprehensive article a look.
MILESTONES
- The API Strategy and Practice Conference (APIStrat) is dead. Long live the API Specifications Conference, or ASC. The newly re-minted event is this October 15-17 in Vancouver, Canada.
- A new version of the API Platform Client Generator is out. Version 0.2.7 fixes a few minor things and creates ReactJS and VueJS single page apps (SPA) from Hydra and OpenAPI API definitions.
- It is a bit tangential to Net APIs, but if you or code that you love happens to refer to items in S3 buckets using a conventional resource-style path, you may want to check out this dire warning from Amazon; in short, after September 30th, 2020, Amazon will stop serving those requests. Given the popularity of S3 and the likelihood folks are treating it like a web server, the potential for harm if developers don't patch their stuff is large (perhaps an argument for using hypermedia)
- The "https://building.hypermedia.app/" was recently brought to my attention. It proclaims to be a guide for building hypermedia apps. However, I had some difficulty in using the site. "Build hypermedia apps", in 2019, might not be enough of a value proposition for new visitors. There's also a tremendous amount of terminology to wade through: Hydra, Nancy, Single Page Apps. .net, etc. Interested, but new, visitors may be bowled over as to whether all these things are required to "do hypermedia". I do think there are some good ideas here. However, the problems holding this site back are the same I see on several other efforts. The documentation needs a set of beginner's eyes, with an emphasis on plausible promises and actionable insights.
WRAPPING UP
I continue to refine the hunter/gatherer scripts used to discover and present information to Netapi.events. I've added many new meetups, in addition to the previously mentioned API Specifications Conference. Got something that isn't mentioned? Shoot me an email; I'd be happy to add to it.
I'll end by saying thank you to my Patreon sponsors. When the will is weak, the caffeine abounds, due to them.
Till next time,
Matthew @libel_vox and matthewreinbold.com