If there is a breaking change forced upon in the future, can’t we use a different name for the function?

soulofmischief 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

A versioned API allows for you to ensure a given version has one way to do things and not 5, 4 of which are no longer supported but can't be removed. You can drop old weight without messing up legacy systems.

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Bjartr 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

See the many "Ex" variations of many functions in the Win32 API for examples of exactly that!

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jahewson 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

/api/postsFinalFinalV2Copy1-2025(1)ExtraFixed

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pixl97 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Discoverability.

/v1/downloadFile

/v2/downloadFile

Is much easier to check for a v3 then

/api/downloadFile

/api/downloadFileOver2gb

/api/downloadSignedFile

Etc. Etc.

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echelon 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I have only twice seen a service ever make a /v2.

It's typically to declare bankruptcy on the entirety of /v1 and force eventual migration of everyone onto /v2 (if that's even possible).

	▲	bigger_cheese 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		A lot of the Unix/Linux Syscall api has a version 2+ For example dup(), dup2(), dup3() and pipe(), pipe2() etc LWN has an article: https://lwn.net/Articles/585415/ It talks about avoiding this by designing future APIs using a flags bitmask to allow API to be extended in future.
	▲	pixl97 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I work for a company that has an older api so it's defined in the header, but we're up to v6 at this point. Very useful for changes that have happened over the years.

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claw-el 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Isn’t having the name (e.g. Over2gb) easier to understand than just saying v2? This is in the situation where there is breaking changes forced upon v1/downloadFile.

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ks2048 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you only break one or two functions, it seems ok. But, some change in a core data type could break everything, so adding a prefix "/v2/" would probably be cleaner.

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CharlesW 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You could, but it just radically increases complexity in comparison to "version" knob in a URI, media type, or header.

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3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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