tl;dr: "PHP action API"

I'm organizing content in the mediawiki.org API namespace, https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T105133 , and so back to this bikeshed from August 2014.

We do now have the extra APIs. https://en.wikipedia.org/api/ names them
* PHP action API
* REST content API

I don't know who came up with the first name. I like it, it straddles Brad Jorsch's
> seems like "action API" and "api.php" are the two contenders.

I'm changing the API navigation accordingly, https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:API but the shed isn't going anywhere :)

FWIW in writing documentation, I've found "the core API" is misleading because extensions add API modules to it. Is Wikidata part of "the core API" when only one wiki implements all its wbXXX modules? A lot of API clients rely on the extracts and pageimages modules, but they're not part of core.

Cheers,

>>>> it was twelve months ago... >>>>

On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 10:00 AM, Tyler Romeo <tylerromeo@gmail.com> wrote:

Agreed with Aaron. When these proposed additional APIs are actually implemented, then we can start arguing about what to call them.

I know that I personally will continue to call the API the “core web API” or sometimes just the “web API”, if it is clear based on the context in which I am talking.
--
Tyler Romeo
0x405D34A7C86B42DF

From: Aaron Halfaker <ahalfaker@wikimedia.org>
Cc: MediaWiki API announcements & discussion <mediawiki-api@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] [Mediawiki-api] Bikeshedding a good name for "the api.php API"

As a heavy user, I generally just refer to the things api.php does as "the
API". or "MediaWiki's web API" when I'm feeling verbose.

I'd be confused about the "action API" since I generally use it to "read"
which isn't really "action" -- even though it corresponds to "action=query"

As for "the proposed REST API", I don't think that proposed things should
affect the naming scheme of things we already know and love.

Also, I think that all bike sheds should match the color of the house to
(1) denote whose bike shed it is and (2) help tie the yard together like
furniture in a living room.

On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 3:50 PM, Sumana Harihareswara <sumanah@wikimedia.org
> wrote:

> I like "action API".
>
> Sumana Harihareswara
> Senior Technical Writer
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 5:06 PM, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) <
> bjorsch@wikimedia.org
> > wrote:
>
> > Summing up, it seems like "action API" and "api.php" are the two
> > contenders.
> >
> > "api.php" is least likely to be confused with anything (only its own
> entry
> > point file). But as a name it's somewhat awkward.
> >
> > "action API" might be confused with the Action class and its subclasses,
> > although that doesn't seem like a big deal.
> >
> >
> > As for the rest:
> >
> > Just "API" is already causing confusion. Although it'll certainly
> continue
> > to be used in many contexts.
> >
> > "MediaWiki API", "Web API", and "MediaWiki web API" are liable to be
> > confused with the proposed REST API, which is also supposed to be
> > web-accessible and will theoretically part of MediaWiki (even though I'd
> > guess it's probably going to be implemented as an -oid). "MediaWiki web
> > APIs" may well grow to encompass the api.php action API, the REST API,
> and
> > maybe even stuff like Parsoid.
> >
> > "MediaWiki API" and "Core API" are liable to be confused with the various
> > hooks and PHP classes used by extensions.
> >
> > "JSON API" wouldn't be accurate for well into the future, and would
> likely
> > be confused with other JSON-returning APIs such as Parsoid and maybe
> REST.
> >
> > "Classic API" makes it sound like there's a full replacement.
> >
> > All the code name suggestions would be making things less clear, not
> more.
> > If it had started out with a code name there would be historical inertia,
> > but using a code name now would just be silly.

=S Page WMF Tech writer