Building RESTful APIs

Anand Chitipothu

Anand has been crafting beautiful software since a decade and half. He’s now building a data science platform, rorodata, which he recently co-founded. He regularly conducts advanced programming courses through Pipal Academy. He is co-author of web.py, a micro web framework in Python. He has worked at Strand Life Sciences and Internet Archive.

Abstract

REST a simple architectural style based on the priniciples of HTTP for building modern web applications and APIs. This hands-on workshop takes you though everything that you need to know to build great RESTful APIs. We’ll be using Python for examples and exercises.

By the end of this course, you’ll have good understanding of RESTful APIs and start judging every API that you encounter.

Outline

Who is it for?

The workshop is targeted at web developers. It is expected that the paritipants have basic understanding of how web works.

What will you learn?

Introduction to APIs
- Introductions to APIs
- Historical evolution of APIs
- Exploring modern APIs using simple command-line tools.
HTTP and RESTfulness
- Introduction to fundamental principles of HTTP
- Introduction to REST
Designing APIs
- Thinking about resources
- Resource Representation
- Being Stateless
- Designing URLs
- Examples and exercises
Implementation
- Practical tips and tricks in implementing APIs
- Examples and exercises
Authentication and Secutity
- Introduction to authentication patterns
- Study of Basic Auth, OAuth, access keys and JWT
- End-to-end encryption using HTTPS
Documenting APIs
- Discussion of various tools commonly used for documenting RESTful APIs