Modern software systems are composed of many servers, services, and other components that communicate through APIs. As a developer, your job is to make sure these APIs are stable, reliable, and easy to use for other developers.   API Design Patterns  provides you with a unique catalog of design standards and best practices to ensure your APIs are flexible and user-friendly. Fully illustrated with examples and relevant use-cases, this essential guide covers patterns for API fundamentals and real-world system designs, along with quite a few not-so-common scenarios and edge-cases.

about the technology

API design patterns are a useful set of best practice specifications and common solutions to API design challenges. Using accepted design patterns creates a shared language amongst developers who create and consume APIs, which is especially critical given the explosion of mission-critical public-facing web APIs. API Patterns are still being developed and discovered. This collection, gathered and tested by Google API expert JJ Geewax, is the first of its kind.

about the book

API Design Patterns  draws on the collected wisdom of the API community, including the internal developer knowledge base at Google, laying out an innovative set of design patterns for developing both internal and public-facing APIs. In this essential guide, Google Software Engineer JJ Geewax provides a unique and authoritative catalog of patterns that promote flexibility and ease-of-use in your APIs. Each pattern in the catalog is fully illustrated with its own example API, use-cases for solving common API design challenges, and scenarios for tricky edge issues using a pattern’s more subtle features. With the best practices laid out in this book, you can ensure your APIs are adaptive in the face of change and easy for your clients to incorporate into their projects.  

what's inside

• A full case-study of building an API and adding features
• The guiding principles that underpin most API patterns
• Fundamental patterns for resource layout and naming
• Advanced patterns for special interactions and data transformations

about the reader

Aimed at software developers with experience using APIs, who want to start building their own.

about the author

JJ Geewax  is a software engineer at Google, focusing on Google Cloud Platform and API design. He is also the author of   Google Cloud Platform in Action.