preface

For most of my career, I have worked on connecting software bricks together using various software interface technologies, from simple files and databases to remote software interfaces based on RPC, Corba, Java RMI, SOAP web services, and web APIs. Throughout these years, I have been fortunate to work on motley distributed systems, mixing very old mainframe technology with state-of-the art cloud systems and everything in between. I also have been fortunate to work on both sides of software interfaces in various contexts. I worked on IVR (Interactive Voice Response), websites, and mobile applications built on top of huge service-oriented architecture systems. I’ve built both private and public web services and web APIs for frontend and backend applications. During all these years, I complained a lot about the terrible software interfaces, and I fell into many traps and created terrible software interfaces too.

As years passed, and technology evolved from RPC to SOAP web services and web APIs, connecting software together became more and more simple from a technical point of view. But whatever the technology used, I have learned that a software interface is far more than technical plumbing or a by-product of a software project.

After attending my first API conferences in 2014, “API Days” in Paris, I realized that many other people were struggling with APIs just like me. That is why in 2015 I started my API Handyman blog and also started to participate in API conferences. I wanted to share my experiences with others and help them to avoid falling in the same traps I had fallen into. Writing and speaking about web APIs not only allowed me to help others, it also allowed me to learn even more about them.

After two years of blogging and speaking at conferences, the idea of writing a book came. I wanted to write a book for my old self who fell into so many traps. As luck would have it, Manning Publications was looking for someone willing to write a book about the OpenAPI Specification, an API description format (we’ll talk about it in chapter 4, by the way). I took a chance and proposed my Design of Everyday APIs book, and it was accepted. This title was inspired by Don Norman’s Design of Everyday Things (MIT Press, 1998), which is a book about design (you definitely should read it). My idea was later replaced by the more straightforward The Design of Web APIs. I have to admit that I am more comfortable with this title; I don’t feel I’m borrowing from the fame of Don Norman anymore.

In the beginning, the book’s content included the design of everyday things + API + REST vs. gRPC vs. GraphQL. It would have been quite indigestible, but I wanted to make a book whose principles could be used for any type of API. Month after month, the content was refined and enhanced to what is now The Design of Web APIs. I chose to focus on REST APIs and use those as a support example for you to learn web/remote API design principles, which would go beyond merely designing APIs. I think my old self would have been quite happy to read this book; I hope you like it too!