REST API Notes for 2018/05/01
Happy May! In the DC area, the weather is heating up. So, too, is the API content being shared online. Onto the recaps!
MICROSERVICES
There was quite a bit of microservice thought released in the last couple weeks. The first deck I wanted to highlight was from Michael Plöd. Entitled "From a legacy monolith to microservices with Domain-driven Design", the detailed slides walk through one of the most fraught aspects of API design: planning. Iterating (and versioning) one's way to the correct solution is difficult when contracts are involved. As one of my favorite quotes by Josh Bloch says, "A week of coding can often save an hour of thought."
While we're discussing how to organize granular boundaries, Zhamak Dehghani had a piece on how to "Break Monolith into Microservices". Her emphasis was to draw out services that are based on vertical capabilities, identifying those that are important to the business and subject to frequent change.
What would 2018 be without some exploration of microservice anti-patterns? Stefan Tilkov, not only has his slides posted for the talk, "Microservices: Patterns and Antipatterns", but you can watch the talk, as well.
Continuing the theme, Tareq Abedrabbo has a well-written piece on "Microservice Anti-Patterns. I strongly relate to the "lack of business alignment" argument, where microservices initiatives start to scratch a curiosity itch. While it may be fun to launch technological flights of fancy, at some point the piper must be paid.
Of course, it isn't enough to just do microservices. What is beyond microservices? Eberhard Wolff has a thought provoking presentation that explores that exact question.
Want even more microservices? Video from the recently completed microxchg 2018 conference, in Berlin, have been published. The conference is, uniformly, great. And with YouTube's auto-captions, playing the conference, even in a busy workspace, is now possible!
MILESTONES
- API Transformer is a great tool for converting from one API documentation format to another. They've just released their 2017 Trends Report. Included are insights on the popularity of various formats, the average number of endpoints submitted, and more.
- Several weeks ago, I mentioned Salesforce was buying Mulesoft. This time, IFTTT raises $24M, lead by Salesforce. The effort is to, in their words, 'connect everything'.
WRAPPING UP
Lots of spring and summer API events are listed on webapi.events. I'm always happy to add more in-person conferences and meetups around the world. And if you know of an event that isn't list drop me a line - either respond to this note directly or send me an email at 'hello@matthewreinbold.com'.
Til next time,
Matthew