Rest (Representational State Transfer) webservice style is getting widespread acceptance across the Web fraternity. Industries and software communities are looking alternative to SOAP and WSDL based webservice. To compete with SOAP and WSDL based webservice REST need to support Descriptive Language based API.
Webservices APIs that follow and apply to the REST architectural constraints are called RESTful APIs. API descriptive language need to include blueprint of service, contract of service, metadata of service and documentation of service.
Many REST API descriptive language (API DL) are available today. Here I am discussing top 3 active API DL available for REST.
RAML — RAML is sponsored by MuleSoft. RAML Built on broadly used standards such as YAML and JSON, written in CoffeeScript, and can be used as a node.js. This is one of the very famous API DL and widely use with MuleSoft ESB. RAML support blueprint and contract of service design before you start your original coding. RAML API design approach is top-down. Writing spec for RAML is simple, human readable format.
SWAGGER – Sawwagger is sponsored by couple of companies like Apigee, Reverb and supported with a large number active developer communities. Swaager format is based on JSON but they also support YAML. Swagger right now doesn’t support design before code. SWAGGER API design approach is bottom-up. Writing spec for SWAGGER looks incomplete.
API Blueprint – API blueprint is sponsored by Apiary.API blueprint is based on Markdown. Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. There is no active developer community support for API Blueprint. API Blueprint right now doesn’t support design before code and its design approach is top-down. Writing spec for API Blueprint is simple and easy.
Rajnish Kumar is CTO of Vanrish Technology with Over 25 years experience in different industries and technology. He is very passionate about innovation and latest technology like APIs, IOT (Internet Of Things), Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem and Cybersecurity. He present his idea in different platforms and help customer to their digital transformation journey.
that was very good article , but would have been more appreciated if it had depth about each API DL