World of APIs is always changing. The things we know today allow us to make better use of our APIs and designing new ones way easier.
In order to stay on top of the game, you need to stay in touch with all of the modern trends and understand what impact they have on the market.
That’s why we will talk about four key trends in the API-design market and show you how those trends are influencing all APIs.
1. Event Subscriptions Architecture
When we are talking about this design approach, the interaction of API and the user is reversed. That’s pretty different than the traditional approach, in which the user comes to the API, requests some information and cancel’s this interaction when he wants.
That approach, while useful, is also pretty limited. And new designers recognize this. In this type of architecture, the user makes the first step, subscribes to the service, however, he can`t terminate that interaction whenever he wants.
By subscribing the user is linked to the entity. And the interaction will be terminated only when the subscription ends. This new approach works perfectly with new API tools and will probably revolutionize the industry in the following years.
2. Frontend-oriented APIs
This type of APIs allows for more dynamic interactions between the software and the user than backend-oriented ones. It allows the user to do mapping from APIs to the devices easily.
Frontend-oriented API will offer you better requests, with more details and then sends those requests back to the backend.
The response to this request gives you more information than before and makes things go smoother. Of course, the user knows what he needs, backend-oriented can’t really provide all of the information he wants.
But frontend-oriented APIs simply give richer responds and provide the user with new data that he will be able to use for his app.
3. Hypermedia and HATEOAS
In traditional CRUD design process (Create, Read, Update, Delete) most programmers struggle to get all of the data they need. However, hypermedia is going to provide a response to simplified queries by including hypermedia links.
Basically, it’s going to offer you more resources when you are requesting specific information about the API.
For instance, think about the client who is sending a data request.
The Hypermedia system will access to the project that contains that data and will provide you with a response which will include that information and additional resources that will help you understand it.
That means, you’ll get links to relevant information sources that will enable you to understand the API better.
4. Bots could be the next generations of APIs
Nowadays, bots are everywhere so naturally, the API industry is taking notice. Bots are great for answering question, so programmers are now using them to explain the workings of their API further. They complement the documentation and allow the end-user to find his way around it.
And that’s not all – programmers are currently experiment and finding more ways to use bots.
For instance, since AI isn’t where it needs to be, programmers are now create full bot networks that are able to do numerous tasks and automate some of the more mundane processes in API design.
The Conclusion
Technology is evolving in front of our eyes and API design is not exception to this. Processes are changing and in just a few years, CRUD probably won’t be the best option when it comes to API design. If the process doesn’t get replaced, the designers will probably come up with an updated version of it.
We hope you enjoyed the article and that you found these API trends interesting. If you have anything to add to the conversation, of if you have any questions regarding API trends, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section below and we’ll get back at you as soon as possible.