Category Archives: CS-343

REST APIs and Data

I decided to dive further into what REST APIs really are, and how they are used, as they now appear both in my course syllabus, and as a possible solution for progressing my own internship work.

While searching for information, I came across a blog post titled, What Is a REST API? Examples, Uses, and Challenges (https://blog.postman.com/rest-api-examples/). This post goes over what REST APIs are, how they are used, and what you can do with them.

The post also included a YouTube video, demonstrating setting up a REST API, and this part I found particularly interesting. I saw the person in the video utilize GET, and a command to filter for a specific Id associated with the data they wish to retrieve. This rings a bell for me, as I index database instances with an Id very often at my workplace. As I now need to export some of the data produced by my workplace software, in particular by fetching and filtering various attributes such as by Id, for other platforms, utilizing a REST API to aid me in transferring data could provide the data bridge I need to produce analytics from the software I’ve created.

The post delves into the history of the APIs as well, and talks about how REST can be more efficient than SOAP, and how big names like Facebook and Instagram utilized, and still do utilize, REST APIs to transfer data for their users. I was also intrigued to find out that the Amazon S3 storage buckets also utilize REST APIs, and I’ve worked with them in data courses already.

Some of the benefits of using REST APIs include scalability, flexibility, portability, light-weight, and language/platform independence.

The challenges that need to be accounted for when using REST APIs include ensuring endpoint consistency, keeping the URL structures uniform across teams, versioning, maintaining old APIs while introducing new ones, authentication complexity, including basic or bearer tokens, API keys, or OAuth tokens and passwords, as well as accounting for and preventing security risks, such as through encryption, or protecting keys.

Some best practices recommended by the poster include using correct HTTP status codes, 200, 400, 404, etc, returning informative error messages, making sure to secure your APIs via encryption, input validation, and role-based access. Documentation is also naturally very helpful for reminding yourself what you’ve done or made, and share that information with your team or other coders.

I hope to successfully implement a REST API in the near future!

From the blog CS@Worcester – KeepOnComputing by CoffeeLegend and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Behavioral Design Patterns

Design patterns provide many benefits when it comes to coding and software development. They are essentially blueprints to help guide and solve problems through the process of designing software. While there are three types of design patterns, the one I will be focusing on here is behavioral patterns. Behavioral design patterns mostly focus on the assignment of responsibilities between objects and help with communications between those objects.

There are many different types of behavioral design patterns. Some of these patterns include:

Chain pf Responsibility
Command
Interpreter
Mediator
Memento
Observer
State
Strategy
Template Method
Visitor

All of these of different uses along with different pros and cons. For example, command patterns turns request into stand-alone objects called a command. This pattern allows you to capture each component of a request allowing the undo and redo of operations. However, this may cause overcomplications of code because of the layer between senders and receivers. Design patterns are easily customizable to help you approach any problem and provide solutions to many problems you may be having within development.

We’ve begun to touch on design patterns within class using UML diagrams and showing different ways to solve problems. We used the example of a duck class and different types of ducks. More duck types were added that were unusual types of ducks that had different behavior types. We used a couple different methods to help make the program work including overriding, interfaces, and behavior types. Each of these solutions had different pros and cons depending on what the user wanted out of the program.

All-in-all, each different type of design pattern has their own uses and downfalls. When working with design patterns, understand what a client or users want out of a program is key to really determining what design pattern to actually use.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Works for Me by Seth Boudreau and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The Uml digram

The blog
post, UML Diagrams – Everything You Need to Know to Improve Team Collaboration,
provides a clear explanation of Unified Modeling Language(UML) Diagram, its
usage and types ending with how it helps to visualize the project. Starting
off, the blog covers the usage of UML diagrams, continuing with its key uses,
forward design, modeling before coding to plan a system, and backward design, modeling
after coding to document a finished system. Also, it covers the thirteen UML diagram
types and what each type shows and describes what each type represents and how
it contributes to visualizing processes effectively.

I chose this
article as it summarizes clearly what the UML diagram, its usage, how the UML
diagram can be used to collaborate with other teammates. First was that since
the class, I felt that I needed to understand UML diagrams better as I still
did not get what use does it has. The fact that it emphasizes UML diagram as
white board for building and analyzing the system the team gave me some reason
for understanding more about UML diagram. Not only that, but the article also
clearly goes in-depth about the UML diagram that goes way in depth compared to
the course of behavioral and structural diagrams and how they can fit together
in real-world workflows. Overall, this blog clarified how UML diagrams support
collaboration as a visual tools to help team members to see and discuss system
structures and behaviors. It made me view UML not just as an academic
requirement but as a practical communication tool that can strengthen teamwork
in future software projects.

After
looking at the article and learning more about UML diagram, I felt like even
though it might not be perfect, that I might have to use it for future use. When
coding I have something on my mind to create, but when trying to explain it or comment
on the structure of the code. Sometimes others don’t understand or sometimes I cannot
remember why I did that later. Not only that, but the rough draft of the
structure can also be used when talking with other teammates because I cannot
do everything by myself and we need to see the same picture, and I think UML diagram
will be the virtual whiteboard for it.

https://www.bluescape.com/resource-library/uml-diagrams-everything-you-need-to-know-to-improve-team-collaboration