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Best Practices: API Design
Well designed APIs = Happy Developers 😃
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are interfaces that make it easy for applications to use data & resources of another application. They are vital to the success of a product or company.
Without APIs, most of your favorite software wouldn’t exist today. For example, the Google Maps API lets you use Google Maps in your mobile or web application. Without it, you would have to design & develop your own maps database! Imagine the time it would take to display a location on the map if there was no API.
Why should we use APIs?
- APIs enable outside access to your resources
- APIs extend the capabilities of your app
- APIs allow developers to reuse application logic
- APIs are platform-independent, they deliver data without being affected by the requesting platform.
In most real-life scenarios, a data model will already be in place, but since we’re going to discuss the best practices for API design, we will start from scratch.
Data-Modelling & Structuring
Modeling your data with the API in mind is the first step in designing easy to create, maintain & update your APIs.
