The history of APIs is something I discuss a lot. The history of modern web APIs is something I include in all my talks, and I’m always surprised by how little people understand some of the more popular APIs that got us to where we are at.
To further support this area, I’ve launched a History of APIs section where I’ve hung the stories I’ve already done in this area, and will be looking to dig up the history on other APIs that are shaking things up.
When I’m talking to people about APIs, the term APIs can mean many different things. Sometimes it means hardware APIs, or the Java API or various other technical incarnations. Right now when you hear the term API, it probably means web API or an API built using REST, running on the same infrastructure the World Wide Web runs on.
When it comes to APIs, I strongly feel that to understand where we are, we need to understand the short, modern history of the web APIs. There are several patterns to why the modern web API movement has worked, that I think you can take home and use in your own API strategy.
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