API

Many social networks provide APIs that enable the development of apps that expand their functionalities and grant access to user data and insights. This article compares popular social media APIs and gives examples of how to use them.

In this tutorial, Toptal Engineer Orban Botond demonstrates how to use the Grape gem -- a REST-like API micro-framework for Ruby -- to build backend support in Rails for a JSON API. Grape is designed to run as a mountable rack engine that complements your web applications without interfering with them.

REST APIs have become a common way to establish an interface between web back-ends and front-ends, and between different web services. The simplicity of this kind of interface, and the ubiquitous support of the HTTP and HTTPS protocols across different networks and frameworks, makes it an easy choice when considering interoperability issues. Bottle is a minimalist Python web framework. It is lightweight, fast, and easy to use, and is well-suited to building RESTful services. In this article, I'll provide a walkthrough of how to build a RESTful API service using Bottle.

Every once in a while PHP developers are charged with tasks that require them to extend the functionalities of legacy projects, a task that often includes building REST APIs. Building a REST API for PHP-based projects is challenging, but in the absence of proper frameworks and tools, it can also be a particularly difficult goal to get right. In this article, Toptal engineer Arminas Zukauskas shares his advice, with sample code, on how to build a modern structured REST API around existing legacy PHP projects.

Here’s the Vulkan API in a hundred words or less: It’s a low-overhead, close-to-metal API for 3D graphics and compute applications. Vulkan is basically a follow-on to OpenGL. It was originally referred to as the “next generation OpenGL initiative,” and it includes a few bits and pieces from AMD’s Mantle API. Vulkan is supposed to provide numerous advantages over other GPU APIs, enabling superior cross-platform support, better support for multithreaded processors, lower CPU load, and a pinch of OS agnosticism.

While Ruby has Rails and Python has Django, the dominant application development framework for Node has yet to be established. But, there is a powerful contender gaining steam: LoopBack, an open source API framework built by StrongLoop, the creators of Express. Let's take a closer look at LoopBack and it's capabilities by turning everything into practice and building an example application.

Microsoft Bond is a modern data serialization framework. It provides powerful DSL and flexible protocols, code generators for C++ and C#, efficient protocol implementations for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. This article is a quick guide of the features and use of this framework.

Wouldn’t it be great to develop for Google Glass without learning a new programming language, and even by just using knowledge common to all web developers? Yes, it is possible! This article will introduce you to web development techniques you can use to build application used on Google Glass.

Web services and their APIs abound. Unfortunately, the vast majority are difficult to use. Reasons range from poor design, to lack of documentation, to volatility, to unresolved bugs, or in some cases, all of the above. Follow the guidance in this post to help ensure that your web API is clean, well-documented, and easy-to-use. Such APIs are truly rare and are therefore much more likely to be widely adopted and used.