Subjects / API design

Best books to learn API design, in order

Good API design is mostly about the consumer's experience, which is invisible until you've lived with a bad one. Start with REST fundamentals and resource modeling, then work through versioning, contracts, and error handling, then the harder questions of consistency and developer experience—reading later authors who argue about style once you have your own opinions to test.

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Reading paths for api design

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Frequently asked questions

How should I approach learning api design?
Good API design is mostly about the consumer's experience, which is invisible until you've lived with a bad one. Start with REST fundamentals and resource modeling, then work through versioning, contracts, and error handling, then the harder questions of consistency and developer experience—reading later authors who argue about style once you have your own opinions to test.
What's a good book to start api design with?
A strong starting point is Principles of Web API Design by James Higginbotham. The ordered reading paths above show exactly where it fits and what to read next.
What should I read after api design?
Once you have the fundamentals, explore closely related subjects like Computer vision, Natural language processing, Generative AI & large language models.

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