DevConnect

Hey everyone,

I wanted to start a discussion about the core principles of designing RESTful APIs. In my opinion, adhering to these principles is crucial for building maintainable, scalable, and understandable web services.

Key Principles I Consider:

• Resource-based URLs: Using nouns for resources (e.g., /users, /products) instead of verbs.
• HTTP Methods: Leveraging GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH correctly for CRUD operations.
• Statelessness: Each request from client to server must contain all of the information necessary to understand and complete the request.
• Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOAS): APIs should guide the client through interactions using links within responses.
• Consistent Naming Conventions: Lowercase, hyphen-separated names for resources and parameters.
• Proper Use of HTTP Status Codes: Returning meaningful status codes (2xx, 4xx, 5xx).

What are your thoughts? Are there any other principles you consider essential? Let's discuss best practices and common pitfalls!

Great points, @api_guru! I especially agree on the statelessness and proper use of HTTP status codes. A common mistake I see is returning a 200 OK for operations that failed, or using generic error messages.

For HATEOAS, I think it's often overlooked. It makes APIs much more discoverable and less coupled to specific client implementations. Imagine a client that can navigate an API without knowing its structure beforehand!

For the URL structure, I prefer kebab-case for resource names: /api/v1/users.

Echoing the sentiment here. A crucial aspect for me is versioning. How do you all handle API versioning? Query parameters (/api/v1/users vs /api/v2/users) or Accept headers (Accept: application/vnd.myapp.v1+json)? I lean towards the latter for cleaner URIs.

Also, what are your thoughts on idempotency for non-GET requests like PUT and DELETE? It's a fundamental REST principle.