Rest api manager encapsulation required or not

Question

I am currently designing a software in which I have to use a rest client. I have decided to use a particular library, but am stuck whether I should use it directly or add a custom encapsulation layer. To make myself more clear, suppose i have to make a request from a function named getAuthInfo.

Doing it directly

function getAuthInfo() {
    return someLibrary.get(path, headers);
}

Adding Encapsulation layer

/* Adding an abstraction layer on top of the library */

import myEncapsulation;

function getAuthInfo() {
    return myEncapsulation.get(path, headers);
}

---------------------------------------------

/* myEncapsulation module */

function get(path, headers) {
    return someLibrary.get(path, headers);
}

The reason why I am asking is because the pace at which things change in javascript world, the library i am using today might do a complete rewrite causing breaking changes or a new library might come out which better supports my use case.

In any such case, if I implement using the first method, I will have to make changes all across the app, but in the second case I will have to make changes in a single module.

But the downside I feel to the second method can be that, there is a little overhead to implement the module and that I will have to maintain very cautiously and document properly for the EncapsulationModule.

What do you guys suggest ??

What I usually do is think about how hard would it be to test my code. In this scenario, are you able to easily mock someLibrary library? If not, definitely, write a wrapper that can be easily stubbed. If yes, weight in the other variables. — bobek, Nov 29 '17 at 18:30

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 29 '17 at 11:33

This is a judgement call that only you (or your team or your manager) can make.

You must weigh the costs/effort of writing an anti-corruption layer now versus the additional effort it would take to find all usages of the external library later when you want/need to replace it.

A large part of this will also depend on how likely you think it will be that the library needs to be replaced during the lifetime of your project.

Rest api manager encapsulation required or not

1 Answers1