Swagger - REST

[Kalman Bekesi]

I know how much you guys like talking about REST, have you come across http://swagger.wordnik.com/ - thoughts?

Kal

[Mark Derricutt]

I may like to talk REST but I'm sure you'll get crazed rabbid responses from Greg on that ;-)

I looked at Swagger awhile ago and really liked what it offers - a very nice clean UI for documenting an API. What I also really liked was the ability to "test the API" and see what came back.

I've not yet actually USED it tho but definitely looks like something to watch. I like that it also has a spec for being a standard way of describing an API.

[Michael Neale]

REST needs to die. 

We need CURL-friendly(tm) apis.

** Note - I will never define curl apis are - only that you are doing it wrong, and that makes me angry. 

[Mark Derricutt]

REST doesn't necessarily mean curl unfriendly. As long as you're POST/PUTing form encoded things at least, submitting XML/JSON starts getting painful.

The question is tho - WHY do we need CURL friendly APIs? Most people don't even know what curl is.

[Greg Amer]

The a pig ee guys reckon that you need browser friendly api as most of your api users will come from the land of the long broken browser and won't understand things like curl, so unless your api is easily usable from the browser it's an uphill battle from the start

[Kerry Sainsbury]

OK Gerg, I'll bite:

wtf is "a pig ee"?

(Google didn't help)

Thanks!

[Mark Derricutt]

http://blog.apigee.com/detail/announcement_new_ebook_on_web_api_design

As mentioned on the last podcast.  Apigee do a lot of pragmatic restful stuff.

The odd thing in all Greg's REST-hate is I've yet to see him offer a viable alternate solution - other than just PHP whack it.

[Michael Neale]

yes I was thinking curl is a most-ly subset of REST, and easier to understand/apply for programmers (not end users, that is another problem). 

It just seems a simple "razor" to apply "could I drive this with curl" - this also includes doing a GET or hitting up URLs to see what is available (so you can discover apis). 

Maybe REST is like good beer - hard to define in writing, but you know it when you have it.