Everyone and their puppy wants an API these days. APIs first gained popularity around 20 years ago. Roy Fielding introduced the term REST in his doctoral dissertation in the year 2000. It was the same year that Amazon, Salesforce and eBay introduced their APIs to developers around the world, forever changing the way that we build software.
Before REST, the principles in Roy Fielding’s dissertation were known as the “HTTP object model”, and you’ll see why that’s important soon.
As you read on, you’ll also see how to determine if your API is mature, what are the main qualities of a good API, and why you should focus on adaptability when building APIs.