REST APIs

Written code for performing following tasks using Git REST API

1. List Branches in a given repo under an owner. See list branches

2. Create a new repo.

3. Creating an issue for an existing repo.

4. Editing a repo to enable wiki support.

5. Listing reactions from a github issue.

The code for performing is in script.js file.

Steps to run the file

1. Get Token :
   Go to the profile page on github. Under personal settings, click on personal access tokens. Then, click on generate new token. Then, name your token and give all rights by choosing repo option which is the first option.

2. Go to REST folder.

3. Run script.js.

The following will install node packages into node_modules

npm install

4. Edit script.js to replace process.env.GITHUB_TOKEN with your generated token and userId with your github username.

5. Now run the script using following command. You should be able to see the all 5 outputs.

node script.js

Debugging

You can also debug/implement the all 5 questions using curl commands in file named Curl_Codes_Debugging.txt:

Concepts

1. Explain some additional concerns related to using REST apis.

Sol.

• REST APIs vocabulary is not fully supported which means most client and server applications don't support all verbs and response codes (like PUT or DELETE) for the HTTP protocol. So we in order to overcome this we have to embed these verbs into a browser form.

• There is not a single vocabulary for REST but there are 3. For eg, HTTP request methods are in the form of GET, POST, PATCH, etc. but the HTTP response coded are in the form if numbers 200, 201, etc. which creates errors and confusion.

• Debugging REST APIs is very hard as the developer has to look at 7 different locations (request method, request address, what developer want to use as request method, message in request payload, response code, what is intended response code and the message in response) just to find what is going on in the transaction.

• The methods and responses codes of REST vocabulary is very limited which also limits our communication to wide variety of requests and responses which are required across all applications.

• According to REST APIs the message content should be independent of the transmission channel which is in contrary to good communication's fundamental law.

• In order to work correctly with REST APIs the user should know what kind of response will be returned.

Some good reads for this answer: Article1 , Article2 , Article3

2. Compare and contrast the benefits and disadvantages of using a RESTful architecture vs. a graph query language. See http://graphql.org/ for details.

Sol.

Difference	RESTful Architecture	Graph Query Language
Protocol	Can use any protocol HTTP, AMQP, etc.	Have to operate over HTTP
Performance	Not optimized for performance	Optimized for performance and flexibility
Conventions	Follow conventions of the protocol it exists in	Graphql dicovers it's own conventions
Controls	Follows Hypermedia controls	Does not follow Hypermedia controls
CRUD	Performing CRUD operations are better	Have to depend on creating new services for each
Uploads	Eg. Uploading files is URL based and simpler	Have to create a dedicated service to handle upload
Deprecations	Field usage monitoring is difficult	Easy to track specific field usage to client
Caching	As HTTP conventions are followed all caching is easy	Have to reorganize the data stores to perform caching
Query Language	REST APIs are not very customizable because it creates confusion	Graphql is a query language which makes it simple and highly cusomizable
Clients Power	Power of writing queries is in the hands of the API developers	Clients can write their own queries and handle things