API design – Automated Hacks

Chapter 3 (1990–1994): HTML Forms as the Web’s First User-to-Server API Pattern

Before JSON, before REST, and before public developer portals, HTML forms quietly created the first mainstream user-to-server API pattern on the early Web—turning clicks into structured HTTP requests.

HTTP as the Foundation of Web APIs (1990–1994): The Birth of the Web and Early Interfaces

Chapter 1 (1990–1994) of web API history: how early HTTP turned the newborn Web into a programmable interface—long before “REST” and “JSON” became everyday terms.