APIs: The good, the bad, the ugly
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APIs: The good, the bad, the ugly @MicheleTitolo
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Apps consume a lot of web services these days. Sometimes, these new services can be fantastic, and other times not so much. Learning how to evaluate APIs and identify problem areas before jumping head first into development can save us frustration, time, and money. This session will walk through evaluating an API, best practices, and red flags, all from the standpoint of an iOS dev. No matter your experience level, you'll leave with the skills to effectively tackle your next API.
Transcript of APIs: The good, the bad, the ugly
APIs:The good, the bad, the ugly
@MicheleTitolo
What we’ll cover
Documentation
The Good
It exists
Bonus: it’s interactive
I/O Docs
The Bad
Docs aren’t updated
The Ugly
Documentation?
URLs
The Good
Consistency
/users/22445/products/3156/movies/127/times
The Bad
Inconsistency
/users/22445/reviews/3156/times/127
Not review or time id’s
The Ugly
“Send GET to /remove to delete”
Payloads
The Good
You have all the data you need
The Bad
Endpoint “id” field
/products id
/products/:id productID
/cart product_id
Yes, this actually happened
Change
We expect certain things
...like image urls having http://
...like dates sent in the same format
We expect certain thingsto not change
The Ugly
JSON containing HTML
Unstable
Authentication
The Good
HTTP Basc Auth over SSL
...when SSL is secure
OAuth
The Bad
OAuth
The Ugly
Authorization
The Good
App requests permissions
The Bad
A single API key
The Ugly
Authorization?
goto fail;
Errors
The Good
Error codes
Error message in response
Human readable error message
The Bad
“There was an error”
The Ugly
Caching
The Good
Using one of the standards
Cache-Control
If-Modified-Since
etags
The Bad
Manually processing data
The Ugly
Caching
In Summary
Consistency
Conventions
Simple
Questions?@MicheleTitolo
• JSONSchema, RAML, API Blueprint,
• HTTP 1.1 Spec: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html
• Charles, Postman
• http://runscope.com, also http://newrelic.com for backend analytics
• Versioning: http://apiux.com/2013/05/14/api-versioning/
Q&A Resources
