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If you don't provide an API for your content, but you're happy to render some HTML containing the content when I browse to your website, then if I want the cont
by TechBro8615 3y ago
If you don't provide an API for your content, but you're happy to render some HTML containing the content when I browse to your website, then if I want the content, I will get the content. No API is necessary. I will happily waste your resources scraping HTML if it's necessary to get the content I want, so it's in your best interest to provide it via an API, which is ultimately just a more efficient interface to the same data you're already providing me for free.
- gary_0 3y agoIn the era before JSON and pervasive Javascript, HTML was the API. The Web is an API. The people saying "API" are really just saying "the same data that's in the HTML, but stripped of extra junk". HTML was never supposed to be about presentation, it was data meant for a variety of user agents. Has everyone forgotten? Are they too young to remember? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!