The fast-growing Web API landscape brings clients more options than ever before---in theory. In practice, they cannot easily switch between different providers offering similar functionality. We discuss a vision for developing Web APIs based on reuse of interface parts called features. Through the introduction of 5 design principles, we investigate the impact of feature-based reuse on Web APIs. Applying these principles enables a granular reuse of client and server code, documentation, and tools. Together, they can foster a measurable ecosystem with cross-API compatibility, opening the door to a more flexible generation of Web clients.
@article{arxiv.1609.07108,
title = {A Web API ecosystem through feature-based reuse},
author = {Ruben Verborgh and Michel Dumontier},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.07108},
year = {2018}
}