A chronological look at 1990–1994, when the Web’s earliest HTTP interfaces and URL conventions laid the groundwork for modern web APIs—providing historical context for developer-first platforms like Stripe.
Server-Sent Events (SSE) arrived much later, but the need for streaming updates was visible from the Web’s earliest days. This chapter traces how HTTP’s simple request/response model (1990–1994) created both the problem—and the early experiments—that led to modern streaming web APIs.
In the Web’s first years, HTTP’s simple request/response model made “real-time” feel out of reach. This chapter traces the early interface patterns—HTTP/0.9, evolving headers, and CGI scripts—that set the stage for later solutions like the WebSocket API.
Long before Web Workers existed, early 1990s browsers and HTTP libraries faced the same problem: how to avoid locking up the user experience while fetching and processing network data. This chapter traces the API roots that later made true background processing possible.
In the early 1990s, the Web didn’t have RSS or Atom—but it did have the core ingredients of syndication APIs: stable URLs, machine-friendly representations, and repeatable retrieval via HTTP. This chapter traces how early HTTP interfaces and publishing habits made feeds inevitable.
Long before “webhooks” became a common term, the early Web (1990–1994) introduced patterns—HTTP endpoints, CGI scripts, gateways, and server-generated callbacks—that made event-driven integration possible.
From password-protected directories to CGI scripts that behaved like proto-APIs, the early Web (1990–1994) experimented with access control long before the industry standardized API keys and developer portals.
In the early 1990s, the Web had HTTP requests and shared documents—but not “web APIs” or delegated authorization. This chapter traces the authorization reality of 1990–1994 and explains how those constraints foreshadowed OAuth 2.0.
Before OAuth 1.0 existed, the early Web (1990–1994) made key decisions—stateless HTTP, Basic Auth, CGI, and cookies—that eventually demanded delegated authorization for APIs.
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.