What are the advantages of using java cloudant client?

Question

What are the main advantages of using java cloudant client api instead of directly using the cloudant REST API?

thanks

Answer 1

A lot of effort has been made to ensure that the Cloudant Java library is slick to use, and hiding both some of the rough edges of the API, encoding some best practices and saving you from tedious boiler plating.

It also gives you a lot of extra functionality "for free", for example automatic retrying of requests that generated a "429: Too Many Requests" response in the rate-limited environment on IBM Cloud.

The Java library is of course also officially supported, with a regular release cadence, meaning that you can raise tickets against it, and have an expectation that issues will be fixed. As these libraries are developed in conjunction with the service, you can also expect that new features in the service will be reflected in the client libraries.

Saying all that, it's good to reflect on when to use a library that someone else wrote, and when to "roll your own". All languages and platforms tend to have good support for HTTP, and speaking directly to the API can mean that you know exactly what you have, and you can avoid any bloat, especially if you only need a fraction of what the library provides.

Here's an example I wrote (in Python, but the ideas hold for any language) to show how simple it can be to write a "micro" library yourself to target the API directly:

https://github.com/xpqz/microcdt