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How To Design A Good API and Why it Matters

Google TechTalks · 453.3K views · 2007-10-09 · 1:00:19

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Overview

Joshua Bloch's Google Tech Talk on how to design good APIs and why it matters, with concrete principles and examples. It treats every programmer as an occasional API designer.

On Hacker News

HN repeatedly names it the best resource on API design, a staple answer to any 'how do I design an API' question.

Recommended by 12 HN people across 12 months · HN mentions 2011–2025

Topics

Software architecture & designPython, Ruby & scripting languages
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api designjoshua blochsoftware engineeringjavainterfaces

What people said

minzak · 2025-08 · Strong recommendation

Nice article. I'd also highly recommend "How To Design A Good API and Why it Matters" video from Joshua Bloch (co-author of Java). He digs much deeper, mostly at code level rather than JSON level but the same principles apply. Even though this video is almost 20 years old, the topics are as significant today as they were back then. [VIDEO]

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philbo · 2012-03 · Strong recommendation

I'm building a public API in my current job and, a few weeks ago, I was scouting around for the good API design advice. Absolutely far and away the best resource that I found was this Google TechTalk by Joshua Bloch: [VIDEO] If you're interested in the topic and haven't seen it yet, I urge you to do so ASAP.

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socratic · 2011-10 · Strong recommendation

Obviously, this is marketing rather than a serious treatment of the topic. It seems to basically say: "in order to design a system, you should have a regular undergraduate Computer Science education" which seems maybe like a prerequisite (and maybe informative about their hiring process) but not very useful. However, for what it's worth, the two best resources I've seen for systems design are: Hints for Computer System Design: [LINK] How to Design a Good API: [VIDEO] What else should be in this bibliography?

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Sources

Video by Google TechTalks, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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