API Developer Weekly – December 1, 2016 – Issue #139
A hand-curated weekly newsletter for API developers, published with permission from LaunchAny and CaseySoftware.
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Hot Topics
API error handling using Machine learning
For those of you that have looked at the ins and outs of Machine Learning you will know its a very in depth technology that, if used right, can offer a lot of benefits particularly to end users. by Steven Cooper [devblog.xero.com]
The future of front-end development is design
Should we make our kids learn to code? This question was posed to me at a recent dinner party. As one of the only people in our social circle who has worked in and around software development for an entire career, I get this type of question often. by Carson Miller [techcrunch.com]
APIs need to be both machine and developer friendly
The importance of user experience (UX) is widely recognized by technology companies. UX has become one of the key success factors for products. By definition from Nielsen and Norman, UX covers “all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” If your product is an API (application programming interface), the users interacting with your product, and your company are developers and you need to be considering developer experience (DX). by Taija Björklund [mindtrek.org]
Microsoft Flow Reaches General Availability
Microsoft recently announced the General Availability of Microsoft Flow, a cloud-based automation platform that provides workflow and connectivity capabilities across many popular online and on-premises services. Since the preview, in April 2016, 117,000 people from 61,000 organizations have used the service to automate their business processes. [infoq.com]
WebSub
We offer this spec in hopes that it fills a need or at least advances the state of the discussion in the pubsub space. Polling is extremely wasteful and high latency. Formerly PubSub, PuSH/PubSubHubbub. [w3.org]
OpenAPI Trek Beyond API Documentation (API Strat 2016)
After API Days London, and Nordic APIs Summit in Stockholm, Scottie beamed me to API Strat Boston 2016 for the final part of my OpenAPI specification (fka. Swagger specification) talk series: OpenAPI Trek Beyond API Documentation. [apihandyman.io]
wellsjo/JSON-Splora
JSON-Splora – GUI for editing, visualizing, and manipulating JSON data [github.com]
API blogs, API Newsletters and API-oriented-Slack-groups to follow
A useful collection of API blogs to follow, API newsletters and API Slack groups. by APIdays [medium.com]
Upcoming Web API Events
A list of upcoming Web API Events, maintained by Matthew Reinbold
The Business of APIs
Why This CEO Pumped The Brakes On Growth Before Stepping On The Gas
This month SendGrid, a cloud-based customer communication platform, announced the opening of its new global headquarters in downtown Denver. A leader in email deliverability, SendGrid has 40,000 paying customers and delivers over 30 billion emails each month for internet and mobile-based customers like Airbnb, Pandora, HubSpot, Spotify, Uber and FourSquare and more traditional enterprises like Intuit and Costco. by Drew Hansen [forbes.com]
API Management Vendor Akana Acquired by Rogue Wave Software
In what appears to be a continuation of a trend whereby API management solutions are paired with platforms capable of hosting business logic, Rogue Wave Software — provider of the ZEND PHP platform — has acquired Akana, Inc., provider of API management and SOA governance solutions. [programmableweb.com]
Stripe has raised $150 million more at a $9 billion valuation
IPO next? by Jason Del Rey [recode.net]
RapidAPI: Welcome to the API Economy
A profound new chapter in the story of software has emerged – one that is changing the way we think about, build, and integrate applications. The API is, quite simply, quickly becoming the interface for business. by garcegarce [a16z.com]
Why You Should Be Measuring Time To Utility For Your Product
Do you measure your product’s time to utility? If not, you should. The best products reward users as quickly as possible after installation and account creation. But it’s easy to forget about this and as a result, watch conversion rates from download/install-to-active fall. CRM products have the longest time to utility of most software products. [tomtunguz.com]
(Un)Related Topics
Why the fuss about serverless?
To explain this, I’m going to have to recap on some old work with a particular focus on co-evolution. Co-evolution Let us take a hike back through time to the 80s/90s. by swardley [hackernoon.com]
Purposes of the serverless architecture style
Why to use serverless architectures and what is FaaS and BaaS [specify.io]Slack looks great running on a Commodore 64
Old technology was reincarnated this year. There was the NES Classic Edition and Kodak’s revamped Super 8 camera. And now, a software engineer named Jeff Harris is twisting the formula by bringing… by Ashley Carman [theverge.com]
So I’ve been doing microservices
Not so long ago, I’ve eventually decided to dive into the world of microservices. I did look for an opportunity to make use of this architectural pattern for quite some time and finally was able to do so. by Piotr Gankiewicz [piotrgankiewicz.com]
Let Postgres Do The Work
You are developing an application that serves up social content, perhaps it is a clone of Instragram. The application’s users can view posts by others and then like and comment on their favorites, typical social behavior. As it is a community site you’ll naturally want to show a selection of the most recent popular posts. by Parker Selbert [sorentwo.com]
The New Workplace Is Agile, and Nonstop. Can You Keep Up?
The idea has been around for at least 15 years. It is used by the small tech company Twilio, for example, to turn out 40 changes to its product every day. But it wasn’t until recently that this sort of employee organization found its way into other industries or even into the technology departments of other companies. by Quentin Hardy [nytimes.com]
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