Using a RESTful API for Dynamic Websites

Question

PHP and MySQL

In building dynamic websites (can be personal, web app, etc..), is it suitable to use API request calls, instead of MySQL queries?

Example in my function getArticles(), should I use a native MySQL query like:

$sql = 'SELECT id, title, content
        FROM r_articles'
$result = mysql_query($sql) or die ('.. bla bla');

Or, just execute a GET request to: http://mysite.com/api/articles. Then (supposed to be the response is in JSON) format the response.

NOTE: The API of course is to be created first.

Answer 1

That depends fully on the type of your site. If you're building a small project with just the webinterface, stay with your mysql calls.

If you're doing a site which shall grow big and serve more than one service, e.g. an android/iPhone application is already planned out, build the api and let both applications use it. APIs are great for scalability and serving to a lot of customers. However, for a web representation e.g. for your locals dentist its simply overhead.