API design: Remove unused CRUD service

user_4011408 0
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I am currently the supporter of a web service which has several resources supporting CRUD operations. I discovered that for some resources, a few of these operations (but not all four at the same time) are unused by the consumers.

Which of the following should be preferred?

  1. Remove the unused endpoints because unused code is causing maintenance costs and YAGNI.
  2. Leave the API as it is, because it is more important to have the full set of operations (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE) in place which makes dealing with the resource more pleasant, and if it is only for some manual testing.
api-design rest api web-services
3 Answers

In my opinion, if you think that unused methods can produce errors, delete or comment the code. You could review these after when you need it. Keep only the resources that you need.

user_29036460

it is more important to have the full set of operations (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE)

It's not particularly important to have a full set of operations. In fact, it is documented in the HTTP specification that most resources won't support DELETE

Relatively few resources allow the DELETE method -- its primary use is for remote authoring environments, where the user has some direction regarding its effect.

if it is only for some manual testing.

Testing and operations are perfectly valid reasons for supporting resources and operations that don't directly drive revenue.

Also: cool URI don't change. Backwards compatibility is an important idea in the REST architectural style, the consumers' view of the web isn't supposed to break for no good reason.

One thing you need to be careful about in retiring support for an operation is understanding whether customer's don't use the operation because they don't need it, or if they don't use the operation because the circumstances where they need it don't arise often.

user_547340

It's hard to give a general answer to this, but I would usually remove code that's not used and there are no plans to.

More code is a larger surface area for bugs and security problems. Maintaining code is not free.

user_809110
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