[ksahin]

"After 4 and a bit years, by far and away the most popular method with an uptake of more than 90% is versioning via the URL. So that's all V3 supports. I don't care about the philosophical arguments to the contrary, I care about working software and in this case, the people have well and truly spoken. I don't want to have to maintain code and provide support for something people barely use when there's a perfectly viable alternative."

Well said !

[mehrdadn]

Funny thing is here I am wondering why he didn't pass a query parameter instead of altering the path or adding a header to version the API... does anyone know? It has the advantage of being clickable while not implying the resource is different.

[floatingatoll]

One reason could be constructed by example, as:

  <Location /v3>

vs.

  <LocationMatch ?[.*&]v=3(&|$)>

Which is to say that, depending on the application's coincidental design and structural choices over time, managing versions at /v1 /v2 /v3 might well be vastly easier for the "shoestring budget" operator than at /?v=1 /?v=2 /?v=3.

[mehrdadn]

It seems unlikely considering the other 3 were more drastically different and yet seen as pretty equally easy.

[Ayesh]

API versioning with query parameters is often an implementer nightmare.

[mehrdadn]

Why..? Does it break through too many abstraction layers?

[novaleaf]

one benefit of putting version in the path is it makes it easier for loadbalancers to direct traffic. like v3 could be served from different servers than v2

[mehrdadn]

Why can't they do that with the query parameters?

[novaleaf]

maybe he can, but I know that google cloud's loadbalancer doesn't let you.