distributed systems – Automated Hacks

Chapter 41: Before gRPC—How 1990–1994 Set the Pattern for High-Performance Service APIs

In 1990–1994, the Web’s earliest HTTP interactions were simple, document-centric, and slow by today’s standards—but they established the core constraints that later pushed developers toward service-style APIs and, eventually, high-performance systems like gRPC.

Microservices Before the Name: Internal API Ecosystems at the Birth of the Web (1990–1994) — Chapter 39

In the Web’s earliest years, developers used simple HTTP interfaces, CGI scripts, and server modules to stitch together internal systems. This chapter traces how those early patterns anticipated microservices and modern internal API ecosystems.