Wow! What fun that first session was!
I had to pick a shot that shows code 😁
Thank you so much for joining me for the API Protocol Design class. Your energy, questions, and engagement made it such a fantastic experience. I'm genuinely grateful to each of you who showed up and dove deep into this material with me.
Here's a quick recap of what we covered:
The philosophy behind API protocol choices — why "it depends" is the architect's favorite answer, and how to back it up with structured reasoning
REST fundamentals: resources, HTTP methods, idempotency, statelessness, cacheability, and why it's the default choice for good reason
GraphQL deep dive: single endpoints, schemas, queries, mutations, resolvers, and when that "build your own bowl" approach really shines
gRPC essentials: protocol buffers, binary serialization, HTTP/2 transport, code generation, and why Google built it for billions of requests per second
WebSockets & SSE: real-time communication, the scaling challenges with stateful connections, and the pub/sub pattern that makes it all work at scale
We covered a LOT of ground, and you all asked some really sharp questions that pushed the discussion even further.
Exciting news!
The full edited content from the class is now available as a members course on my website for those who want to revisit the material at your own pace. https://www.javabrains.io/courses/api-protocol-design
Session 2 is coming up! I'm streaming on YouTube this time so you don't have to register again or remember Zoom links.
But hit the bell icon maybe?
📅 Sunday, January 25, 2026
🕣 8:30 AM PST / 10:00 PM IST
In Session 2, we'll be diving into the comparison and trade-off analysis — all the stuff that's really important in system design interviews. We'll work through real scenarios, discuss when to choose what, and practice articulating those decisions like a senior engineer or architect would.
Can't wait to see you there!
Cheers,
Koushik Kothagal