
The land before modern APIs - stanleydrew
https://increment.com/apis/land-before-modern-apis/
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msla
I thought this would be about APIs as in _APIs_ , that is the general concept
which goes back decades, not REST APIs. This sounded like a much more
interesting piece on the history of software development in the old days.

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tasogare
Same here, I hate when API is used to denote Web APIs, which are only a
subset.

> While in one sense an API is a _compact_ between two or more pieces of
> technology, it’s ultimately a _compact_ between two or more people.

Also the author could have re-read its article before publishing.

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frosted-flakes
> _Noun_ compact ( _plural_ compacts)

> An agreement or contract.

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coding123
My largest gripe with REST is that it's a very lock-in technology. Once we
evolve past REST instead of being able to decouple cleanly from the underlying
protocol, we're pretty much trapped in status codes and methods that lock us
in. At least with GraphQL there's a clean break. Everything should have been
focused on the payloads, not the transport layer.

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fluffernutter
REST is an architectural style and while the decision to use the style may
lead to "lock in", it in and of itself does not given it's a choice to use it
or not.

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coding123
Couldn't I say that about anything that leads to lock in?

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bluu00
Just because YSK,it was posted before too, 3 days ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24363052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24363052)

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1vuio0pswjnm7
I sometimes discover these old protocols when I am testing things on localhost
and using traditional netcat. The original nc does automatic reverse DNS
lookups. rje was assigned port 77. I knew about rje from using port 77 but I
had not read this.

