243
votes
Why should 'boneheaded' exceptions not be caught, especially in server code?
Silent But Deadly
When writing enterprise software, you will eventually learn an essential truth: the worst bug in the world is not one that causes your program to crash. The worst bug in the world ...
- 1,884
106
votes
When would you use a long, string ID instead of a simple integer?
Youtube can't use sequentional IDs for two reasons:
Its databases are almost certainly distributed, making sequential numbering complicated.
It has a privacy option "Unlisted videos": those that don'...
- 849
104
votes
Accepted
Should you guard against unexpected values from external APIs?
You should never trust the inputs to your software, regardless of source. Not only validating the types is important, but also ranges of input and the business logic as well. Per a comment, this is ...
- 3,287
81
votes
When would you use a long, string ID instead of a simple integer?
On the form of the IDs: They're using Base64 (using the characters a-z, A-Z, 0-9, -, and _). This allows them to have 6 bits of information per character. YouTube uses 11-character video IDs, which ...
- 754
71
votes
Accepted
What is the present-day significance of SOAP
REST is indeed an architectural style. SOAP is a data protocol. The distinction is important; you cannot compare them directly.
The primary purpose of REST is to represent resources on the Internet,...
- 199k
59
votes
Why should 'boneheaded' exceptions not be caught, especially in server code?
Exceptions should be allowed to crash the system if the system has been left in an unrecoverable undefined state. If you can't put the system back in a defined state that ensures data integrity and ...
- 105k
44
votes
Accepted
Should I return a 204 or a 404 response when a resource is not found?
HTTP 204 means that something was found, but it's empty. For instance, imagine that you're serving log files through HTTP, with the requests such as http://example.com/logs/[date-goes-here]. On May ...
- 135k
44
votes
Why not use SQL instead of GraphQL?
Basically, abstraction.
SQL requires your clients to know your exact database structure, which is not good. On top of that, analysing the SQL in order to perform special operations based on the value ...
- 10.3k
43
votes
Why should 'boneheaded' exceptions not be caught, especially in server code?
It doesn't really matter if it's a "boneheaded" exception (e.g. a Java unchecked exception) or not.
The only question to ask yourself is:
"Can the program sensibly continue?"
A &...
- 5,992
35
votes
What is the present-day significance of SOAP
REST is much more limited than SOAP, which is its strength and the reason for its popularity.
In SOAP, the set of operations allowed and the set of data types allowed is essentially limitless. SOAP ...
- 12.9k
34
votes
Should you guard against unexpected values from external APIs?
Yes, of course. But what makes you think the answer could be different?
You surely don't want to let your program behave in some unpredictable manner in case the API does not return what the ...
- 203k
33
votes
I'm not seeing 'tightly coupled code' as one of the drawbacks of a monolithic application architecture
Why X when you can do Y?
The problem with questions like these is that no one has ever claimed that you can't take the more difficult route if you really want to. People aren't pointing out that the ...
- 47.7k
31
votes
If a microservice architecture needs a separate database per microservice then it's too costly & unmanageable. Why do we even need it?
Why do we even need it?
You don't.
Creating a separate database for each service helps to enforce domain boundaries, but it's only one approach. There's nothing stopping you from having all your ...
- 3,083
31
votes
Why not use SQL instead of GraphQL?
In theory there is no reason you can't expose an SQL interface like this.
In practice SQL is far too powerful to be effectively limited to the security scope you want to expose.
Even if you allow ...
- 72.5k
26
votes
Should you guard against unexpected values from external APIs?
The Robustness Principle--specifically, the "be liberal in what you accept" half of it--is a very bad idea in software. It was originally developed in the context of hardware, where ...
- 82.6k
23
votes
Why should 'boneheaded' exceptions not be caught, especially in server code?
You are absolutely correct. An exception in server-side application code ("boneheaded" or not) should not crash a web server.
The confusion is because the articles are not clear about what it ...
- 57.8k
22
votes
Accepted
Handling token renewal / session expiration in a RESTful API
This sounds like a case of authentication versus authorization.
JWTs are cryptographically signed claims about the originator of a request. A JWT might contain claims like "This request is for user X"...
- 4,449
19
votes
Accepted
What should be the scope of a health check for a system which deploys a webapp?
This is hard to implement because of the definition of what is healthy
You answered your own question here. The definition of a health check is going to vary, because what is healthy varies. It also ...
- 12.1k
18
votes
Why should 'boneheaded' exceptions not be caught, especially in server code?
You learned an important thing: Whenever you read a rule on the internet that must absolutely be followed, you must start thinking about it and decide for yourself whether you should follow the rule ...
- 43.6k
17
votes
Handling token renewal / session expiration in a RESTful API
Your API session is a thing which should not exist in a RESTful world at all. RESTful operations are supposed to be stateless, session contains state and thus has no place in a RESTful world.
The JWT ...
- 10.3k
15
votes
Accepted
What HTTP status using for REST search query which returns nos results
I think in the most cases the most useful reaction would be to return a regular answer (HTTP 200) and send empty data.
For example if you are returning JSON you could send
{}
Another good option may ...
- 862
15
votes
When would you use a long, string ID instead of a simple integer?
Integers do not scale that well, a "normal" 32-bit unsigned integer will max out just over 4 billion.
They may not want you to know how many items they have on line or keep track of the ...
- 18.4k
14
votes
If a microservice architecture needs a separate database per microservice then it's too costly & unmanageable. Why do we even need it?
Why do we even need it?
The enormous benefit of microservices—and more largely, SOA—is the high level of abstraction of the internals—not only the implementation, but also the technologies being used....
- 135k
14
votes
Should you guard against unexpected values from external APIs?
In general, code should be constructed to uphold the at least the following constraints whenever practical:
When given correct input, produce correct output.
When given valid input (that may or may ...
- 8,381
13
votes
Accepted
Understanding the difference between Webservices and Service Layer
A service layer is a layer in an application that hides away specific implementation details for a system and provides a uniform and consistent interface to the operations in that system.
A ...
- 6,320
13
votes
Microservices REST or AMQP, which case
By discarding REST, you lose much more than just HATEOAS. If your microservices are public (and it's a good idea for them to be public or at least tend towards being public one day¹), using anything ...
- 135k
13
votes
Accepted
How to design a REST API to handle non-CRUD operations?
You need to watch this talk by Jim Webber.
When I need to update the state of the subscription, I cannot simply send a POST request to the server, because I don't have direct access to the resources, ...
- 32.4k
12
votes
What's the best RESTful URL structure for a recursive resource?
What comes to my mind is: do not let you RESTful API reflect the recursivity in the URL itself. Come to think of it, your resource is only the documents.
If you have your documents stored physically ...
- 240
11
votes
If a microservice architecture needs a separate database per microservice then it's too costly & unmanageable. Why do we even need it?
As Dan Wilson answers, you don't really need it. Microservices are the new hot thing, and like all new hot things, people use them in a lot of places even when they don't provide much value.
...
- 109k
11
votes
Accepted
How does user authorization work in a Microservice architecture
When developing and deploying actual micro services, you do not want your consumer to access the microservices directly for several (main) reasons:
it introduces heavy coupling on the client to your ...
- 10.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible