While working for a multinational media company, I was part of a team tasked with delivering a service for customers to upload, print, and deliver documents to a specified mailing address. We wanted customers to be able to order products and track their packages all through our application. An initial assessment revealed that everything but delivery could be done in-house.
Instead of building the delivery function ourselves, we decided to outsource it and integrate an existing delivery company’s application programming interface (API). REST, or representational state transfer, architecture was the clear choice.
REST APIs have become a critical part of software development. For teams whose core business is developing applications, building peripheral features can be time-consuming and often demands deep expertise in a niche domain. This is where REST comes into play. Rather than spending valuable resources developing a feature in-house, there is likely an existing solution that can be bought and integrated into your product using REST.
Used by 86% of developers, REST is by far the most popular API architecture, according to Postman’s 2023 State of the API Report. The survey also revealed that 46% of organizations plan to increase the time and resources they lives in APIs over the next 12 months.
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are merging the physical and digital worlds. While VR enables immersive digital experiences, AR adds digital components to our real world. From gaming and entertainment to education, virtual offices and virtual doctor visits, these technologies bring a new level of human interaction.
As a product manager with a background in software development, my approach has always involved hands-on solving of technical problems, and I have used REST to achieve success in every role. This guide aims to empower product managers with the foundational knowledge they need to help teams build quality REST APIs. REST API Key Principles and Best Practices REST is a software architectural style that defines standards for the design and development of distributed systems, making it easier for them to communicate with one another. The following sections explain the key characteristics of REST APIs and how you can maximize their potential. Get Familiar With Data Formats.
REST APIs often communicate using JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) or XML (Extensible Markup Language) as data formats. Gaining a basic understanding of these formats will enable you to interpret API responses and design effective data structures. In my years working as a product professional, these are the only data formats I’ve encountered when working with REST APIs.
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