Use datasette-table Web Component to guide the design of the JSON API for 1.0

[simonw]

I realized that one of the reasons I'm having trouble committing to nailing down the JSON API for 1.0 is that I don't use it much myself - I use the ?_shape=array one quite often, but I don't have any projects that are using the default, more fully-featured API.

As an experiment I built a Web Component for embedding Datasette tables on pages - https://github.com/simonw/datasette-table - and I think it's actually going to be a really useful tool for helping me dog food the v1.0 API design.

[20after4]

FWIW I've written some web components that consume the json api and I think it's a really nice way to work with datasette. I like the combination with datasette+sqlite as a back-end feeding data to a front-end that's entirely javascript + html.

[simonw]

That's really cool to hear - I've not seen many people actively building on top of the JSON API.

[20after4]

It's a really great API and the documentation is really great too. Honestly, in more than 20 years of professional experience, I haven't worked with any software API that was more of a joy to use.

[simonw]

Could also build a CLI Rich/Textual app to exercise the API - which could embed Datasette as a dependency and work using datasette.client.get(...) calls.

Could be a plugin that adds a datasette tui command.