Let's Build an API Together - Part 14

Last Update: 08.01.2018. By Jens in API Series | APIs | Newsletter

The black box testing with a RAML tool failed last time, so we are left with unit and our own integration tests. Which brings me to the point what should we use? Should our tests focus more on pure unit testing or more integration tests, testing different parts at the same time?


Let's Build an API together - Part 13

Last Update: 05.01.2018. By Jens in API Series | APIs | Newsletter

This episode is another one of “it didn’t work out as planned.” I originally wanted to use Abao as a tool for testing my API implementation against the RAML description. Unfortunately, Abao only works with RAMl 0.8 and not with RAML 1.0 which I was using. The request ticket for RAML 1.0 support was opened in 2015 and is still not done.


Let's Build an API together - Part 12

Last Update: 04.01.2018. By Jens in API Series | APIs | Newsletter

I implemented a basic version of the TaskService today. You can find the full version in the GitHub repo as I’ll only discuss certain findings.


Let's Build an API together - Part 11

Last Update: 03.01.2018. By Jens in API Series | APIs | Newsletter

Now that we have settled with a DB, it is time to define our model.


Let's Build an API together - Part 10

Last Update: 02.01.2018. By Jens in API Series | APIs | Newsletter

Today, we are going to decide which data storage we will use. A few years ago, it was pretty clear to go with an RDBMS, but nowadays we have a few other options we can consider. If we have a choice at all. In the enterprise world, we are often restricted by some company policies or standards.


Let's Build an API together - Part 9

Last Update: 01.01.2018. By Jens in API Series | APIs | Newsletter

Now that we have defined our API in RAML and generated the Spring MVC controllers, etc. it is implementation time. Before we write our code, we should consider if we go with a classic 3 tier design or skip some of them.


Let's Build an API together - Part 8

Last Update: 22.12.2017. By Jens in API Series | APIs | Newsletter

Last time I wrote the RAML spec for the Kanban API and now we are going to generate some Spring MVC controller for it. So, I setup a Spring Boot project on GitHub and used the Spring MVC - RAML Spec Synchroniser Plugin for Maven.


Let's Build an API together - Part 7

Last Update: 21.12.2017. By Jens in API Series | APIs | Newsletter

I was going to use API Blueprint for designing the API and later use tools for generating a Spring MVC endpoint with it. However, as I had a basic version of the API spec, I noticed that the tool would need to run in Javascript either by hand or as a task in the build tool Grunt. Image red lights and a nice beep now :-) it becomes complicated when using two build systems in one deliverable. Also, it’s a completely different tech stack and I sometimes have trouble with nodejs tools because yeah, js devs love living on the edge. Me not, I love stable techs as it saves me headaches.


Let's Build an API together - Part 6

Last Update: 20.12.2017. By Jens in API Series | APIs | Newsletter

Now that we have covered the essentials, we could go and hack our MVP together. However, we will look at other options first.


Let's Build an API together - Part 5

Last Update: 19.12.2017. By Jens in API Series | APIs | Newsletter

The next thing we should consider in building our API is a versioning scheme. It is inevitable that we are going to change an API and at some point will face backward-incompatible changes. You might ignore it if you only have one client. But trust me, if you don’t consider it from the start, it will ruin your day in the future.