On API Design Guidelines

Fernando
Fernando

Update: Good news! Jaroslav Toulash emailed me that he published a book on Practical API Design !!!


Looks like Brian McAllister may be preparing a talk on Designing Elegant APIs.

I've been very interested in good API design for a long time. But I could never find a single book on the subject. Many design and programming books provide good advice and guidelines that are essential for designing good APIs, but none of them tackles the matter directly.

I reviewed "Interface Oriented Programming" a few months back with disappointment. It may not be a bad book, but I felt it was quite basic and superficial. May be my expectations were too high, and too focused on API design.

Over time, I collected some links on the subject and shared some with Brian:

So, let's hope Brian gives his talk at a big conference, signs a contract with a big publisher and fills the void.