A focused look at 1995–1998: CGI and forms as de facto APIs, early JavaScript as a client-side interface layer, and why these patterns mattered long before the Canvas API existed.
Long before the Geolocation API standardized location access, mid-1990s developers used forms, CGI, cookies, and early JavaScript to approximate “where” a user was—and tailor content accordingly. This chapter traces how 1995–1998 web building blocks shaped the idea of contextual experiences.
From JavaScript’s first steps to CGI-driven forms and early cookie standards, 1995–1998 taught browsers and servers how to coordinate state—an essential precursor to modern browser storage APIs and richer client applications.
RSS (late 1990s) and Atom (later) are often remembered as “blogging features,” but their real legacy is API-shaped: a stable URL that returns structured, machine-readable updates. This chapter traces how 1995–1998 browser scripting, CGI, and form-driven web apps created the practical and cultural prerequisites for syndication APIs.
From CGI scripts and HTML forms to early JavaScript and server callbacks, 1995–1998 quietly introduced the integration patterns that later evolved into modern webhooks.
In the mid-to-late 1990s, “web APIs” often looked like CGI scripts and HTML form endpoints—yet operators still needed quotas and throttles. This chapter examines how rate limiting quietly became a business and security tool as browsers gained scripting and HTTP traffic scaled.
From CGI scripts to browser scripting and form-driven endpoints, 1995–1998 shaped early developer access control patterns that foreshadowed modern API keys—often implemented with shared secrets, IP allowlists, and basic auth.
In 1995–1998, “web APIs” weren’t polished JSON endpoints—they were CGI scripts and form posts stitched together with early JavaScript. Those patterns exposed hard authorization problems that OAuth 2.0 would later solve.
OAuth 1.0 arrived much later, but the core problems it solved—third-party access without password sharing—were already visible in 1995–1998 web development patterns like CGI, cookies, and early browser scripting.
Long before Facebook exposed a social graph to developers, the web learned how to pass identity, state, and structured inputs through HTML forms, CGI scripts, cookies, and early JavaScript. This chapter traces the 1995–1998 API-shaped habits that later became essential to Facebook Platform APIs.