Title: Web API design considerations for resolving inherent issues in web environment

Authors: Hui Ming Teo, Wan Mohd Nasir Wan Kadir

Addresses: Agile Matrix Solutions (AMS), 1735B, Jln Sri Putri 4, Taman Putri Kulai, 81000 Kulai Johor, Malaysia. ' Software Engineering Department, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Systems, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81300 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia

Abstract: The recent trend in web application development is moving towards exposing the service functionality through application programming interface (API). Many web-based services start to offer APIs to support application-to-application integration with their consumers on top of the web. The trend has raised the demand for average web developers to know how to design APIs for web-based services. In this paper, we summarise a list of inherent issues in the web that developers should pay attention to, describe how web architecture may help to resolve these issues, and suggest design considerations for web API design. In addition, we demonstrate an experimental design process through a case study to design web API for social bookmarking service.

Keywords: design considerations; web services; web-based services; service interface design; API design; representation state transfer; RESTful services; atom publishing protocol; AtomPub; application programming interface.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWET.2009.032253

International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology, 2009 Vol.5 No.4, pp.360 - 381

Published online: 18 Mar 2010 *

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