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.
From 1990 to 1994, the Web’s earliest HTTP interfaces quietly introduced the core patterns that modern CMS programmability depends on. This chapter connects those early request/response ideas to the later WordPress REST API.
From early HTTP requests and URIs to CGI gateways, 1990–1994 quietly established the interface patterns that modern commerce platforms—like Shopify—use for extensible APIs today. Chapter 57 of a chronological web API history series.
Long before Twilio made communications programmable, the early Web (1990–1994) established the practical building blocks of web APIs: URL addressing, request/response patterns, and simple server interfaces that taught developers how to “call” a service over HTTP.
A look back at 1990–1994, when the Web’s earliest HTTP patterns—resources, links, forms, and simple request/response behavior—quietly established the API ideas that later powered Facebook Platform APIs and the social graph.