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Rolling versions: A new standard for API versioning

6 pointsby subomiabout 1 year ago

1 comment

jasonpeacockabout 1 year ago
I thought this was something obvious that everyone did? I was definitely doing this 15+ yrs ago when I built web services. It&#x27;s the only path of sanity when you have to support multiple versions at the same time.<p>Neither the article, nor the linked articles, address how to handle actual breaking changes.<p>E.g. when you _require_ new fields that are not present in the old API, you can&#x27;t just hard-code a default value for the old API and use it forever. You must migrate clients to a new API and deprecate the old. Rolling versions doesn&#x27;t magically solve that.<p>I admit, most required fields can be defaulted and clients accept the resulting degraded experience&#x2F;features. This approach does make you really think about what&#x27;s actually a breaking change or not, and if it&#x27;s worth the cost.