Moving beyond API polling to asynchronous API design

Jennifer Craig's article discusses the transition from API polling to asynchronous API design, emphasizing the limitations and inefficiencies of polling and the advantages of asynchronous APIs (async APIs). Polling, a method where clients repeatedly send requests to a server to check for updates, is described as complex, wasteful, and leading to a poor user experience due to non-real-time updates. The article notes that only a small percentage of polling requests yield new data, resulting in resource wastage. To address these issues, async APIs allow the server to notify clients of updates, improving efficiency and real-time communication. Various technologies, such as webhooks, server-sent events (SSE), and data streaming, are explored as alternatives to polling, each with unique benefits and challenges. Webhooks, for instance, provide real-time updates but require clients to expose an endpoint, while SSE supports one-way server-to-client communication. The article also highlights the importance of choosing the right async pattern based on specific use cases and offers insights into migration strategies for integrating async APIs into existing systems.