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Everything I know about good API design

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428 points ahamez | 1 comments | 24 Aug 25 19:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.232s | source
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runroader ◴[24 Aug 25 22:41 UTC] No.45008463[source]▶
I think the only thing here that I don't agree with is that internal users are just users. Yes, they may be more technical - or likely other programmers, but they're busy too. Often they're building their own thing and don't have the time or ability to deal with your API churning.

If at all possible, take your time and dog-food your API before opening it up to others. Once it's opened, you're stuck and need to respect the "never break userspace" contract.

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1. devmor ◴[24 Aug 25 22:47 UTC] No.45008497[source]▶
I think versioning still helps solve this problem.

There’s a lot of things you can do with internal users to prevent causing a burden though - often the most helpful one is just collaborating on the spec and making the working copy available to stakeholders. Even if it’s a living document, letting them have a frame of reference can be very helpful (as long as your office politics prevent them from causing issues for you over parts in progress they do not like.)