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0 pointsmkleczek1y ago0 comments

> This is why I created an abomination that uses go/ast and friends to generate the OpenAPI spec from the code.

This is against "interface first" principle and couples clients of your API to its implementation.

That might be OK if the only consumer of the API is your own application as in that case API is really just an internal implementation detail. But even then - once you have to support multiple versions of your own client it becomes difficult not to break them.

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physicles1y ago

I don't see why it couples clients to the implementation.

Effectively, there's no difference between writing the code first and updating the OpenAPI spec, and updating the spec first and then doing some sort of code gen to update the implementation. The end state of the world is the same.

In either case, modifications to the spec will be scrutinized to make sure there are no breaking changes.

Cthulhu_1y ago

Yeah this is the way, I mean if the spec already exists it makes sense to go spec-first. I went spec-first last time I built an API because I find most generators to be imperfect or lacking features; going spec-first ensured that the spec was correct at least, and the implementations could do the workarounds (e.g. type conversions in Go) where necessary.

That is, generate spec from code and your spec is limited to what can be expressed by the code, its annotations, and the support that the generator has. Most generators (to or from openapi) are imperfect and have to compromise on some features, which can lead to miscommunication between clients/servers.

jitl1y ago

OpenAPI spec being authored by a human or a machine, it can still be the same YAML at the end of the day, so why would one approach be more brittle / breaks your clients than the other?

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