Recommendation on web language for building API set for application like friend-feed

Question

I'm working on an idea for a website like friendfeed and need inputs on how to deverlop an API set. The module for tracking changes isnt a problem and has been build using system calls (so language-neutral).

(a)What language should i use to build this API-framework for developers? Primarily this service is intended for developers, NOT end users who want to monitor changes on webpages. They will need to sign up for accounts for regestering new queries / etc. A "call-back" site will need to be specified initially when specifying the pages to be monitored. When any change is detected, that site/script will be called by my service, etc...

(b) is there an open source "framework" for building this API set that I can use?

Answer 1

There's Odata which is made specifically for this purpose. It's an open specification, so you could use anything you want and on the client side, but Microsoft provides a full and very easy to use implementation with WCF data services.

One of the advantages of using odata is that your developers have access to all kinds of client-side libraries for your api without having to code everything from scratch and fiddle with http requests. However, this is not mandatory. Developers can still use your API as a simple RESTful http api if they want to though.

Another advantage (at least when using WCF data services, I can't vouch for the rest) is that is is very easy to develop on the server side.

Scott Hanselman has a nice blog article on how he built an odata api for Stackoverflow in 30 minutes.