From HTTP’s earliest minimal requests to early gateways and CGI-style interfaces, the Web’s first years (1990–1994) established a practical rule: evolve without breaking what already works—before formal API versioning even existed.
From HTTP/0.9’s minimalist requests to early headers, logs, and debugging rituals, 1990–1994 set the foundation for API observability and developer experience on the newborn Web.
In the Web’s earliest years, browsers didn’t ask for camera, location, or notification access—because they couldn’t. This chapter traces how early HTTP and HTML interfaces quietly defined privacy expectations long before formal browser permissions APIs existed.
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.
Between 1990 and 1994, government agencies began publishing public information on the newborn Web. These early HTTP and CGI interfaces weren’t called APIs yet, but they introduced patterns—URLs as queries, shared formats, and public access—that later defined open data APIs.
From HTTP/0.9 GET to early headers and CGI, 1990–1994 quietly established the core patterns behind today’s headless CMS APIs and content delivery.
JWT didn’t exist in 1990–1994, but the Web’s first HTTP interfaces already wrestled with the same API authentication problems: stateless requests, shared gateways, and portable identity. This chapter traces the roots of token-based auth from early HTTP, Basic auth, CGI sessions, and the arrival of cookies.
In 1990–1994, the Web’s “API surface” was mostly URLs, HTTP methods, and early server scripts—not JavaScript calling APIs. This chapter explains how that era set up the later need for CORS and modern cross-origin rules.
From 1990 to 1994, the Web’s earliest HTTP interfaces were built for document retrieval, not event delivery. This chapter explains how those design choices delayed “push” and web notifications—and why that mattered for later web APIs.