openapi-python-client VS actix-web

On the backend, developers either need to manually document the entire API or rely on auto-generation tools that don’t fully meet their needs. Consumers face the same choice, write code by hand or workaround the bugs in their SDK generator (stated, lovingly, as the maintainer of an OpenAPI client generator). On top of this, these solutions result in inconsistent understandings of the API. Reproducing errors becomes time-consuming and frustrating, which feels like a battle instead of a collaboration. What we need is a shared language to describe how the API works—one that doesn’t add unnecessary layers of abstraction or manual work.

Has anyone tried Kiota, specifically the Python support? How does it compare to https://github.com/openapi-generators/openapi-python-client ?

I think we use these - https://github.com/openapi-generators/openapi-python-client

Thanks for the link, but not necessarily.

How WSDL and the code generation around it worked, was that you'd have a specification of the web API (much like OpenAPI attempts to do), which you could feed into any number of code generators, to get output code which has no coupling to the actual generator at runtime, whereas Pyotr is geared more towards validation and goes into the opposite direction: https://pyotr.readthedocs.io/en/latest/client/

The best analogy that i can think of is how you can also do schema first application development - you do your SQL migrations (ideally in an automated way as well) and then just run a command locally to generate all of the data access classes and/or models for your database tables within your application. That way, you save your time for 80% of the boring and repetitive stuff while minimizing the risks of human error and inconsistencies, while nothing preventing you from altering the generated code if you have specific needs (outside of needing to make it non overrideable, for example, a child class of a generated class). Of course, there's no reason why this can't be applied to server code either - write the spec first and generate stubs for endpoints that you'll just fill out.

Similarly there shouldn't be a need for a special client to generate stubs for OpenAPI, the closest that Python in particular has for now is this https://github.com/openapi-generators/openapi-python-client

However, for some reason, model driven development never really took off, outside of niche frameworks, like JHipster: https://www.jhipster.tech/

Furthermore, for whatever reason formal specs for REST APIs also never really got popular and aren't regarded as the standard, which to me seems silly: every bit of client code that you write will need a specific version to work against, which should be formalized.

Tallying up the results, we get 7/8 "MUST" requirements met. I think that Paperclip + actix-web seems like the most promising candidate. I'm really not opposed to writing the OpenAPI v3 construction myself as I've worked with the structure a fair bit in my openapi-python-client project (shameless plug).

Automatic documentation via OpenAPI, which lets you do things like generate Python code that knows how to talk to your API.

Actix Web Documentation: Detailed documentation on using Actix-web, including examples and best practices for building web applications with Rust.

I can't speak to the "is it any good" part, but (after a bit of research) I can share what I've found. I'll try to represent things as best as I understand, but I may have some finer details mixed up.

ntex is written by the same person that started actix-web, Nikolay Kim (fafhrd91 on GitHub). There was a bunch of drama a while back due to actix-web using (what many reasoned to be) avoidable unsafe code, which was later found to be buggy. Nikolay was pilloried online, resulting in him transferring leadership of actix-web to someone else. ntex is, as I understand it, essentially Nikolay picking back up on his ideals for what could have been actix-web, if people hadn't pushed him out of his own project.

How ntex compares to the pre-/post-leadership change of actix-web, I don't know.

Here are some jumping points if you want more of the backstory.

https://www.theregister.com/2020/01/21/rust_actix_web_framew...

https://steveklabnik.com/writing/a-sad-day-for-rust

https://github.com/actix/actix-web/issues/1289

Are you ready to embark on another journey in Rust? Today, we'll explore how to create a REST API that performs basic mathematical operations: addition, multiplication, and division. We'll use Actix, a powerful web framework for Rust, together with Rhai, a lightweight scripting language, to achieve our goal.

Within actix-web, middleware is used as a medium for being able to add general functionality to a (set of) route(s) by taking the request before the handler function runs, carrying out some operations, running the actual handler function itself and then the middleware does additional processing (if required). By default, actix-web has several default middlewares that we can use, including logging, path normalisation, access external services and modifying application state (through the ServiceRequest type).

Rust is a popular system programming language, known for its robust memory safety features and exceptional performance. While Rust was originally a system programming language, its application has evolved. Now you can see Rust in different app platforms, mobile apps, and of course, in web apps — both in the frontend and backend, with frameworks like Rocket, Axum, and Actix making it even easier to build web applications with Rust.

actix to handle HTTP requests