Core API

Draft 1 prepared by Craig Zheng on 26 April 2011

Background

Symphony 2's internal classes were inconsistent and often difficult to use. Symphony 3 should implement a consistent core API across all classes that is easy to use.

The following was prepared during a Symphony working group meeting on 19 April 2011 (transcript).

Proposal

Implement a thorough and consistent API model that can be used throughout the core. Should be accessible via REST.

Scope

The Core API technically is comprised of all the public methods and properties of all the classes in the core.

In Symphony 3 this will be a bit more broad, in part because S3 will take steps in the direction of a proper framework.

Goals

The goals of the API are simple, and are inspired by Trolltech's The Little Manual of API Design.

Symphony 3's API should be:

• Consistent
• Easy to use
• Easy to learn
• Hard to misuse
• Produce readable code
• Extensible

Next Steps

1. Use Cases

   Compile lists of API use cases so that proposals can be tested against each.

   → see API Use Cases

2. Approaches

   Brainstorm some initial approaches, with code samples.

   → see Symphony API Ideas)

3. Diagram

   Start by producing a UML version of the API before coding anything. UML to proceed in stages, beginning with Sections/Entries/Fields.