dretblog

How (API) Languages Evolve

APIs are languages: they specify how providers and consumers of capabilities communicate. The things that can be "said" in an API conversation are determined by the expressivity of the involved language. Modern Web APIs always are *composite languages*, they combine... Read more →

Building Static Sites: How and Who

Building static Web sites is appealing for a variety of reasons: The model can support a rather large range of use cases, allows to use simple tools and easy deployment, and makes it trivial for everybody to work on branches... Read more →

Data Access and API Strategy in the European Union

Last week saw a "Data Access and Transfer" workshop happening in Brussels, organized by the [European Commission](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/index_en)'s Directorates General for [Justice and Consumers (DG JUST)](https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/justice-and-consumers_en) and [Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT)](https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/communications-networks-content-and-technology_en). The intent of the workshop was to... Read more →

The Three Drivers of the API Economy

Explaining that APIs are *a big thing* nowadays rarely is necessary anymore. Both major scenarios of *APIs as a way to interface with partners or the public*, and *APIs as a way to structure your IT internally for greater agility*... Read more →

Linksets: Beyond Inline Hypermedia Controls

*Hypermedia* is based on the assumption that representations contain a mix of data and control information (think HTML's embedded links as the canonical example). Usually, that control information is mixed into or alongside the data, meaning that the producer of... Read more →