Comments on: Good Practice for APIs http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/2009/04/15/good-practice-for-apis/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=good-practice-for-apis A JISC project looking at good practice for provision of and consuming APIs Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:46:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.2 By: Balbir Barn http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/2009/04/15/good-practice-for-apis/#comment-31 Balbir Barn Wed, 13 May 2009 18:01:20 +0000 http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/?p=194#comment-31 What makes a good API? Here is a selection of guidelines from the ACM: DOI:10.1145/1506409.1506424

Obviously:

An API must provide sufficient functionality for the caller to
achieve its task

An API should be minimal, it must not impose unnecessary inconvenience to the caller. (use less parameters, get the granularity down) Don’t make an API call – a composite function.

General-purpose APIs should be policy free – Specialist APIs should be policy-rich.
(here APIS presume the use-case under which the API will be consumed)

APIs should be designed from the perspective of the caller

APIs should be documented before they are implemented

]]> By: Cultural Heritage » Blog Archive » APIs and the Cultural Heritage Sector http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/2009/04/15/good-practice-for-apis/#comment-29 Cultural Heritage » Blog Archive » APIs and the Cultural Heritage Sector Fri, 08 May 2009 08:17:51 +0000 http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/?p=194#comment-29 [...] and outcomes are transferable to the cultural heritage sector. One such outcome is the list of good practice techniques for API creation and consumption. The techniques are currently open for [...]

]]> By: Anthony Leonard http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/2009/04/15/good-practice-for-apis/#comment-28 Anthony Leonard Thu, 07 May 2009 21:32:15 +0000 http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/?p=194#comment-28 Hi Marieke,

This is a much needed project. Good APIs are crucial for end-users as they enable the holy grail: “joined up” services.

Like anything made of joined up components (buildings, cars, electric kettles, etc) the key to engineering success is: standards, standards, standards.

I don’t think this can be emphasised enough. Buildings that are lovingly created by craftsmen are rare and often leak. Those that follow standards don’t. So it is with IT services.

Anthony.

]]> By: Cultural Heritage » Blog Archive » Elsewhere on UKOLN Blogs: April 2009 http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/2009/04/15/good-practice-for-apis/#comment-27 Cultural Heritage » Blog Archive » Elsewhere on UKOLN Blogs: April 2009 Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:57:46 +0000 http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/?p=194#comment-27 [...] Good Practice for APIs [...]

]]> By: Christopher Wood http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/2009/04/15/good-practice-for-apis/#comment-26 Christopher Wood Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:19:05 +0000 http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/?p=194#comment-26 Thanks – this is a really useful document – have downloaded the PDF to share with my team. Chris.

]]> By: Marieke Guy http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/2009/04/15/good-practice-for-apis/#comment-19 Marieke Guy Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:31:08 +0000 http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/?p=194#comment-19 Hi Frankie,

Yes, this is available in the form of a report too. There is also a much longer report covering other areas such as background to API use, benefits and challenges of API provision, problems when using third-party APIs, case studies and recommendation of future work.

We’ll make these available as soon as they’ve been formally passed over to JISC and the go ahead is given.

Marieke

]]> By: Frankie Roberto http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/2009/04/15/good-practice-for-apis/#comment-18 Frankie Roberto Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:42:01 +0000 http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/?p=194#comment-18 Any chance you produce this as a single-page report? Or a PDF?

]]>