I want to build a Web API, where do I start?

Question

My friend asked me this. I don't think I answered him fairly. I told him to learn RESTful architecture and then jump on a sample project. He knows JS and Python, I think.The truth is, whilst I can build one, I really don't know what resource to point other people to. I started off with SOAP APIs so our resources back then were prett different from those of today for websockets, RESTful APIs and all that jazz. Hell, I haven't even worked with GraphQL myself. So I thought I'd ask the community.What is the typical journey today to build a production grade API with authentications and throttling etc?Books, videos, courses, blogs, forums, communities etc.

jmnicolas · Accepted Answer

I was just researching automatic API generation for a project of mine.
This list might be of interest for your friend, however I have no idea how good or bad these solutions are :
https://github.com/dbohdan/automatic-api
The most lazy way would be to use CouchDB. However when you have no schema in your database (NoSQL) you have to implement it (poorly) in your application. Relationnal DB are harder at first but end up a good long term investment imo.