Tag Archives: API

Implementing API Content Negotiation

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What exactly is Content Negotiation? According to Wikipedia it’s “a mechanism defined in the HTTP specification that makes it possible to serve different versions of a document at the same URI, so that user agents can specify which version fit their capabilities the best”.

photo by JD Hancock

So, it serves two purposes: (1) making it possible to have different versions of the same response, and (2) letting clients specify which version they want to receive. Usually, this technique is applied when there are several types of user agents consuming the same HTTP resource but, because they have different rendering capabilities, they might ask for different content types.

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How to localize your API

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Full disclosure: I was born and live in the USA, American English is my native language, and I spend USD every day. However, I work with customers in 18 countries and regions on five continents, and the list is getting bigger all the time.Internationalization localization and currency

Operating a business in the global market is not as trivial as it might seem, if you’ve never seen it through. Everyone not only speaks different languages and has different currencies (not to mention driving on the different sides of the road), but they also have different cultural norms. In many situations, we can merely provide raw values for dates and currency and avoid formatting. However, when content includes localizable information, especially dates and currencies, display formatting needs to be sensitive to the localized culture.

If you’re considering making the jump off of your own soil to the rest of the globe, hopefully this will give you some insights.

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Review: Google Glass API

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Since Google’s announcement of Glass people have been wondering about the possible applications that can be built on it and how it might increase one’s productivity. Well, your wait is over now, because Google has recently released the documentation on how to interact with Glass through their Mirror API.

According to the documentation, the Google Mirror API “allows you to build web-based services, called Glassware, that interact with Google Glass”. Even better is the fact that this functionality doesn’t need that you run any code on Glass itself, since all interactions are done via RESTful endpoints.

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How to Expose User Information

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At a first glance you might think that offering an API method that returns information about your application users might not be a good idea. With the increasing usage of APIs for business related purposes you might fear that you’re giving away precious information about your customers.

photo by The Wide Wide World

But think again. If you give the right amount of information, applications built on top of your API will be able to offer a better service to your users. Your final user will have a better experience and that might turn out to generate more business for you.

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An Overview of REST Metadata Formats

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Although the REST community initially took a stance against metadata for REST APIs, a number of metadata standards have none-the-less emerged over the last couple of years, mainly fueled by the need to document APIs for their consumers.

photo by CCAC North Library

As an added benefit, the same metadata is now often used to generate code (both client and server), create test harnesses, production monitors and perform real-time validation of request and response messages (when applicable). All of these provide a foundation for an improved Quality of Service (QoS) that many enterprises require as they adopt REST for their information architectures.

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