Comments on: The Simplest API Possible

By: Dan Creswell

Dan Creswell — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:17:21 +0000

Hi Scott,

Completely agree re: complexity and tools. There are far too many cases where we create API’s, frameworks etc with a high degree of complexity which we then attempt to paper over with tools. There’s no substitute for keeping it simple throughout the stack.

Todd’s comment about number of resources is much more the kind of issue I was considering worth attacking with tools.

Dan.

By: Scott Mark

Scott Mark — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:06:05 +0000

Good tools are important and no doubt ease the burden. But it freaks me out when people toss that out as the potential-future-solution to the problem they are busily creating today. Tools were supposed to be the answer to the complexities known as JSF and the Java WS APIs, and they are just not there. And even if they were, show me a non-Microsoft developer who doesn’t still want access to what’s underneath when it comes time to troubleshoot or work on something built by someone else.

Todd you bring up an interesting point about the large number of resources in REST implementations, I hadn’t thought of that or heard of it. That’s an interesting topic to consider…

By: Todd Biske

Todd Biske — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:56:07 +0000

Dan-
I think you’re on the right track: tools. As my understanding of REST has grown, one of the things that I see as a potential issue in actually applying it is the sheer number of resources that you might wind up with. Guaranteed, not every object in a design becomes a resource, but my gut tells me that there will be a lot. Trying to manage the whole lot through hand-coded efforts just doesn’t sound like a good plan to me, unless your interest is in job preservation. It seems that this area is ripe for tooling.

-tb