The folks at ProgrammableWeb.com have over 2600 APIs listed in their directories in various categories. With so many APIs available, the founder of the Lokad API provided some tips for API design to help developers.
Joannes Vermorel discusses lessons he learned during the first two versions of their API, turning them into tips that he believes are worth sharing in his post entitled “A few tips for Web API design”.
Among his tips: Take full ownership of API stacks. Understand the protocols thoroughly. Be minimalistic in your design. Reduce the number of methods that your API uses. Vermorel says he and his company learned these lessons the hard way, and hope to save other developers from having to do the same.