First off - new to programming and know very little about API design. That said, I'm creating multiple web apps against a layer of web services and a shared data layer.
The approach is simply to create several different types of functionality - i.e. user profiles, status updates, file uploads, rss feeds, etc... where each row in the various tables would be identified by the app key in addition to the PK. By doing so, it will allow me to drop in any of the functionality currently available or built in the future without having to rebuilding each app.
Questions
I realize this is a 30k foot view, but do you see anything wrong with designing an API in this manner? It seems like it would be very easy to sustain, expand, and open up to other developers.
If I wanted to enable single sign-on for these and all future apps e.g. FaceBook Connect, Log on with Twitter, etc.. but still wanted transactions within the app to be totally autonomous to that app, what might be the best approach?
Thank you