Archive for the ‘REST’ Category

A Conversation About REST

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

I recently had the opportunity to present my “A Conversation About REST” talk at ClubAJAX. A REST API involves more than just pushing data back and forth between endpoints. REST is a set of principles and not a specification, so as such you have freedom in how to develop your API. This freedom can lead to confusion though, as it’s hard to find concrete examples of its implementation. This presentation explained what REST is and also presented a variety of topics and questions you will certainly come across while implementing your API.

The Presentations page has a link to the video recording of the talk, which was very lively with a lot of audience participation. Definitely worth watching!

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3 Tenets for Implementing a REST API

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

In the course of performing my duties at my day job I recently came across the need for our data to be accessible via an API. After researching the various types available, I settled on developing a REST API. The selection process wasn’t the interesting part of this exercise though. Actually implementing a REST API is what was.

REST is a set of principles

If there is one point that you should take away from this post after reading it, it is this: REST is a set of principles and not a specification. Consider for a moment someone you believe to be moral. Traits that may make them moral, such as trustworthiness, decency or honor, are characteristics of their morality; guidelines they follow in their life – a moral code. There is not a law that specifies what morality is, but there is a general sense of what is expected and what is meant when discussing morality. The same holds true for REST. There is not a specific implementation that makes an API RESTful, but instead certain expectations that one should strive to achieve. (more…)

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