API Design

Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs) by definition are directed at software developers. They should, therefore, strive to be useful and easy to use for developers. However, when engaging design elements from the Web, they can be useful in much larger ways than simply serializing states in JSON.

There is no right or perfect API design. There are, however, elements and choices that induce certain properties. This workshop will walk you through various approaches to help you find the developer experience and long-term strategies that work for you, your customers and your organization.

We will cover:

The Web Architecture as the basis of our APIs
The REST Architectural Style and its motivations
The Richardson Maturity Model as a way of discussing design choices and induced properties
The implications of contentnegotiation and representation choices such as JSON or JSONLD
The emergence of metadata approaches to describing and using APIs such as OpenAPI and HydraCG
Security considerations
Client technologies
API Management approaches

About Brian Sletten

Brian Sletten is a liberal arts-educated software engineer with a focus on forward-leaning technologies. His experience has spanned many industries including retail, banking, online games, defense, finance, hospitality and health care. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from the College of William and Mary and lives in Auburn, CA. He focuses on web architecture, resource-oriented computing, social networking, the Semantic Web, AI/ML, data science, 3D graphics, visualization, scalable systems, security consulting and other technologies of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. He is also a rabid reader, devoted foodie and has excellent taste in music. If pressed, he might tell you about his International Pop Recording career.

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