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At MS, in our team no manager gave the slightest damn about being restful or any proper consistent API design. Everything was constantly rushed and just 'tacked

At MS, in our team no manager gave the slightest damn about being restful or any proper consistent API design. Everything was constantly rushed and just 'tacked on', random API versions were created, contracts were broken, nothing was consistent. It was a mess. That said, I believe most of these guidelines completely ignored in most teams.

TinyRick 7y ago
As a fairly heavy consumer of the Azure DevOps REST APIs, this sounds pretty accurate.
dpark 7y ago
It’s almost as if there are different groups in Microsoft with different priorities. Why is it so hard to get 130k people in complete assignment across all areas? Seems like a simple problem.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  > It’s almost as if there are different groups in Microsoft with different priorities. Why is it so hard to get 130k people in complete alignment across all areas? Seems like a simple problem. I feel like this could have been said without the sarcasm and it would have been a great discussion starter. Instead a potentially valid point/retort will be obscured by the tone and discussion surrounding it. For example: > Unfortunately large organizations often struggle to get groups into alignment on issues like this, unless there's a strong mandate from the top down (e.g. Amazon). No sarcasm or snark, same basic substance.
  - mixmastamyk 7y ago
    And not correct either. As mentioned, if Satya said so it would happen within months.
    - dpark 7y ago
      There are a limited number of mandates that can come from the top. Upper management loses credibility when they issue endless mandates, even if all of the mandates are reasonable. It’s also unrealistic that everyone underneath can focus on many mandates at once. Which leads to the loss of credibility when mandates start getting ignored out of necessity.
      - mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Good thing then this isn’t an endless mandate and only a single idea with a short list of requirements.
        dpark 7y ago
        “Endless mandates” meaning an endless number of mandates, not that individual mandates are endless. At Microsoft the number of simple mandates like this one are numbered at least in the hundreds.
        mixmastamyk 7y ago
        It could be done easily if deemed a priority. Defeatism is not a compelling argument.
        dpark 7y ago
        Yes, for any specific mandate like this, it could easily be accomplished. The point is that in aggregate there are too many of these to accomplish. Competent management will choose the highest value things to focus on. This isn’t defeatism. This is realism. Focusing on everything is the same as focusing on nothing. Realistically, mandating RESTful APIs at the exec level is unlikely to be a big win for Microsoft. The teams working on APIs at scale are largely already doing this (and you’ll notice multiple groups represented by the authors). The teams that aren’t doing this are largely not building APIs that benefit a great deal from RESTful APIs, because they’re building internal APIs or similar and RESTfulness would be nice to have but not particularly impactful.
  - dpark 7y ago
    I am unconvinced that there is a meaningful conversation to have about this. Every time any topic comes up in the context of Microsoft, someone chimes in to state that it’s not their experience. Yeah, Microsoft is not a monolithic entity. It’s literally 130 thousand employees and tens of thousands of contractors. For literally any topic, there will be a subset of people who feel their immediate organization doesn’t match the direction the company intends. Top down mandate cannot align 130k employees on every topic, even if that attempt were an appropriate thing for upper management to spend their time on. There might be a more interesting conversation if context were given. If the comment about management not caring about RESTful APIs is coming from someone working as part of a team focused on public APIs, it’s a lot more interesting than someone working on desktop clients. Edit: You know what, you’re right. I read the comment as a flippant “pft, that’s not my experience” and responded as such. I should have assumed better intent. Maybe the commenter was questioning why their experience doesn’t match up with this. Maybe they were asking why management isn’t pushing this effectively. I assumed a specific intent and should have considered different potential intentions.
cellularmitosis 7y ago
Grammar nit: "That said," is usually followed by a contradictory statement, not a supporting statement. i.e. "That said, most folks outside of my team follow these guidelines".
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
There are many actually RESTful APIs out there. Some even have good documentation to accompany. I've heard Stripe given as an example that's especially notable. Managers will care if your API's are a contract with your end customer (e.g., your product is providing APIs), and you're watching your NPS scores.

TinyRick 7y ago

As a fairly heavy consumer of the Azure DevOps REST APIs, this sounds pretty accurate.

dpark 7y ago

It’s almost as if there are different groups in Microsoft with different priorities. Why is it so hard to get 130k people in complete assignment across all areas? Seems like a simple problem.

Someone1234 7y ago
> It’s almost as if there are different groups in Microsoft with different priorities. Why is it so hard to get 130k people in complete alignment across all areas? Seems like a simple problem. I feel like this could have been said without the sarcasm and it would have been a great discussion starter. Instead a potentially valid point/retort will be obscured by the tone and discussion surrounding it. For example: > Unfortunately large organizations often struggle to get groups into alignment on issues like this, unless there's a strong mandate from the top down (e.g. Amazon). No sarcasm or snark, same basic substance.
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  And not correct either. As mentioned, if Satya said so it would happen within months.
  - dpark 7y ago
    There are a limited number of mandates that can come from the top. Upper management loses credibility when they issue endless mandates, even if all of the mandates are reasonable. It’s also unrealistic that everyone underneath can focus on many mandates at once. Which leads to the loss of credibility when mandates start getting ignored out of necessity.
    - mixmastamyk 7y ago
      Good thing then this isn’t an endless mandate and only a single idea with a short list of requirements.
      - dpark 7y ago
        “Endless mandates” meaning an endless number of mandates, not that individual mandates are endless. At Microsoft the number of simple mandates like this one are numbered at least in the hundreds.
        mixmastamyk 7y ago
        It could be done easily if deemed a priority. Defeatism is not a compelling argument.
        dpark 7y ago
        Yes, for any specific mandate like this, it could easily be accomplished. The point is that in aggregate there are too many of these to accomplish. Competent management will choose the highest value things to focus on. This isn’t defeatism. This is realism. Focusing on everything is the same as focusing on nothing. Realistically, mandating RESTful APIs at the exec level is unlikely to be a big win for Microsoft. The teams working on APIs at scale are largely already doing this (and you’ll notice multiple groups represented by the authors). The teams that aren’t doing this are largely not building APIs that benefit a great deal from RESTful APIs, because they’re building internal APIs or similar and RESTfulness would be nice to have but not particularly impactful.
- dpark 7y ago
  I am unconvinced that there is a meaningful conversation to have about this. Every time any topic comes up in the context of Microsoft, someone chimes in to state that it’s not their experience. Yeah, Microsoft is not a monolithic entity. It’s literally 130 thousand employees and tens of thousands of contractors. For literally any topic, there will be a subset of people who feel their immediate organization doesn’t match the direction the company intends. Top down mandate cannot align 130k employees on every topic, even if that attempt were an appropriate thing for upper management to spend their time on. There might be a more interesting conversation if context were given. If the comment about management not caring about RESTful APIs is coming from someone working as part of a team focused on public APIs, it’s a lot more interesting than someone working on desktop clients. Edit: You know what, you’re right. I read the comment as a flippant “pft, that’s not my experience” and responded as such. I should have assumed better intent. Maybe the commenter was questioning why their experience doesn’t match up with this. Maybe they were asking why management isn’t pushing this effectively. I assumed a specific intent and should have considered different potential intentions.

cellularmitosis 7y ago

Grammar nit: "That said," is usually followed by a contradictory statement, not a supporting statement. i.e. "That said, most folks outside of my team follow these guidelines".

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago

There are many actually RESTful APIs out there. Some even have good documentation to accompany. I've heard Stripe given as an example that's especially notable. Managers will care if your API's are a contract with your end customer (e.g., your product is providing APIs), and you're watching your NPS scores.