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_How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters1 How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters Joshua Bloch Principal Software Engineer _How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters2 Why is API Design Important? ? APIs can be among a companys greatest assets _ Customers invest heavily: buying, writing, learning _ Cost to stop using an API can be prohibitive _ Successful public APIs capture customers ? Can also be among companys greatest liabilities _ Bad APIs result in unending stream of support calls ? Public APIs are forever - one chance to get it right _How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters3 Why is API Design Important to You? ? If you program, you are an API designer _ Good code is modular–each module has an API ? Useful modules tend to get reused _ Once module has users, can’t change API at will _ Good reusable modules are corporate assets ? Thinking in terms of APIs improves code quality _How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters4 Characteristics of a Good API ? Easy to learn ? Easy to use, even without documentation ? Hard to misuse ? Easy to read and maintain code that uses it ? Sufficiently powerful to satisfy requirements ? Easy to extend ? Appropriate to audience _How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters5 Outline I. The Process of API Design II. General Principles III. Class Design IV. Method Design V. Exception Design VI. Refactoring API Designs _How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters6 I. The Process of API Design _How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters7 Gather Requirements–with a Healthy Degree of Skepticism ? Often youll get proposed solutions instead _ Better solutions may exist ? Your job is to extract true requirements _ Should take the form of use-cases ? Can be easier and more rewarding to build something more general Good _How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters8 Start with Short Spec–1 Page is Ideal ? At this stage, agility trumps completeness ? Bounce spec off as many people as possible _ Listen to their input and t