Phil Sturgeon

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Flying to Colombia with Not a Bike Bag

Flying to Colombia with Not a Bike Bag

Traveling to major cities, figuring out the taxi/train/bus to and from the airport, then bumbling about yet another globalized concrete jungle is usually not the experience we hope for when we dream of exploring the world. To really get a feel for a city, you want to get

A Happy Compromise Between Customization and Cacheability

With endpoint-based APIs (REST, RESTish, SOAP, RPC, AJAX-ish junk, etc.) you get to choose if you want increased likelihood of network cache hits, or the ability to slim down the response. The two goals are mutually exclusive. Slimming responses can be achieved with concepts like sparse fieldsets (tl:dr; send

Chasing the Perfect API Specification Workflow

Documentation is a nice thing to have, but it is often treated as optional or superfluous, especially in teams where the clients and servers are managed by the same people. Here the code is considered the contract, so why define it again in documentation? Certainly, with all the tooling around,

Representing State in REST and GraphQL

Representing state is a complex thing. At my last two jobs, it's been very common for APIs to be treated like "databases over HTTP". The fields are sent up and down from the server to multiple mobile/web apps, and there's not too much

This Week in Bikes: Collarbones, Crashes and New Fixie

This Week in Bikes: Collarbones, Crashes and New Fixie

One-armed struggles in the pain cave, fixing up a set of wobbly handlebars on the go, and a rather stupid mountain bike crash - with an _already broken elbow! - from multiple angles. Cya again soon for more two-wheeled nonsense! Subscribe on YouTube to make that easier.

You Might Not Need GraphQL

Do you like the look of GraphQL, but have an existing REST/RPC API that you don't want to ditch? GraphQL definitely has some cool features and benefits. Those are all bundled in one package, with a nice marketing site, documenting how to do all the cool stuff,

This Week In Bikes: Cyclops Hammer Setup

This Week In Bikes: Cyclops Hammer Setup

I try setting up a Cyclops Hammer and was about as smooth as a brick. Ended up running through about five bike shops to find a 11-speed cassette: * Red Lantern * REI * Sids Bikes * Chelsea Bikes * King Kog — SUCCESS! Next I’ll be doing a review of the Cyclops Hammer using