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 →

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 →

PubSub: A Short Introduction

Recently, [W3C](https://www.w3.org/) published the first working draft of a protocol called [PubSub](https://www.w3.org/TR/pubsub/). It is on the W3C TR track and thus intended to become a W3C recommendation. While the name is new, it is the protocol that previously has been... Read more →

API Usability Matters: UX and CX is like DX and ...

Being faster at designing and delivering new experiences and products has become one of the main rallying cries of "digital transformation". As a modern organization, you have to stop struggling with the IT side of your goals (or create artificial... Read more →

Resource Profiles and Types

RFC 6906 defining "The 'profile' Link Relation Type" has been published a little while ago and I discussed it briefly when it was published. It has been picked up in a variety of places, and seeing where it is being... Read more →

Patterns for Robust Extensibility

Extensibility is key to creating APIs that not only work initially, but that also can evolve in terms of being appropriated for different contexts, and/or evolving over time. Extensibility is not the only pattern that robust and evolvable APIs should... Read more →

Nothing Lasts Forever (and some things disappear according to a schedule)

It is generally considered to be good practice to make URIs (the identifiers of resources on the web) as stable as possible. However, there are many things on the Web that will not last forever; many of those by design.... Read more →

LocWeb 2015: Call for Papers

The 5th International Workshop on Location and the Web (LocWeb 2015) Held in conjunction with WWW2015, the 24th International World Wide Web Conference Florence, Italy, May 19, 2015. We are very happy to announce that LocWeb 2015 will take place... Read more →