The History of REST APIs In 1999, the API environment was a free-for-all. At that point, most developers had to deal with SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) to integrate APIs. And the “simple” part of that acronym is not to…
How to Generate an OpenAPI Description for an API Describing an API according to the OpenAPI Specification comes with a wide variety of benefits for maintaining APIs in production, and keeping docs automatically synchronized with your live API. You don't have to start over-designing…
How to Use OpenAPI and Swagger for Documentation Excellent API documentation experiences stem from proper use of an OpenAPI or Swagger API description file. In this guide, we explain Swagger and OpenAPI, how to create an OpenAPI or Swagger description for an API,…
6 Faux Pas of HTTP API Design HTTP APIs are very loose by definition: there’s no standards body, no API validator and not always someone there to tell you when you may be doing something incorrect. At ReadMe we have lots of…
The Most Effective API Quick Start Guides, in 7 Examples Developers are notorious for always taking the “learn-by-doing” approach to learning. We often skim the API docs to get the basics, and then turn to our command line to start tinkering around with the code—with…