API
Past Presentations
Generating Unified APIs with Protobuf & gRPC
With today's commonplace polyglot architectures, taming service APIs can be challenging. At Lyft, gRPC enforces a common protocol and types to solidify communication between backend services. How can we bring this same consistency to RESTful services and frontends? In this talk, we will cover...
Beyond REST: Coursera's Journey to GraphQL
Coursera's platform is composed of hundreds of APIs, implemented across dozens of services by various engineering teams. Our client engineers have faced many challenges while using these APIs, especially around discoverability and assembly of data from various services. We’re working to solve...
API Design Lessons Learned: Enterprise to Startup
When faced with a blank canvas and numerous API design decisions to make at the start of a new project or a new company, how does one go about that? Finding the design fit for APIs — private and public alike — is usually a pursuit aided by experience and reflections. In this talk, we explore...
Rethinking CodeGen: IDL, Thrift, gRPC, Ohh My
At Compass we have seen a dramatic evolution in our API over the last 18 months. We have doubled the number of backend services we use and transitioned from a relative "mess" of different API programming patterns and technologies to a unified API architecture that is used across web and mobile....
Refactor Frontend APIs & Accounting for Tech Debt
It can feel like a Shakespearean tragedy having to deal with technical debt when starting feature work - especially when the debt was accrued from a pair of star-crossed lovers - two teams working in parallel. Based on her recent work adding Apple Pay support to perk itemization at Indiegogo,...
A Brief, Opinionated History of the API
APIs have been with us for 65 years or so, but what exactly are they, and where did they come from? They come in all shapes, sizes, and disguises. In this talk, we'll discuss the fascinating history of APIs and look at a few prominent examples with an eye to distilling their essence....