Αναρτήσεις

The API Manifesto

Εικόνα
APIs are important tools for the software community. No matter if we are talking about huge enterprises or about small start-ups the case is always the same: Companies are struggling to create more revenue to survive in the business (super-competitive) world. APIs do just that. Each API is a collaborative tool that help businesses, wanna-become-businesses and hobbyists to share their information or consume others information in order to create relevant business models where each ones survival is dependent on the other ones surviving the business world. Continue reading at my original article . In Search of the API Nirvana

Asimov's Three Rules for the Web of Things

Εικόνα
The era of web of things is an emerging one. New applications, ideas, tools and much more are provided. Smart locks, smart thermostats, smart cars — you’ve probably heard some of these terms lately, and you’re going to hear them even more as the year goes on. But what are these things exactly — and what makes them so smart? These devices are all part of an emerging category called the Internet of Things, or IoT for short. At its very basic level, IoT refers to the connection of everyday objects to the Internet and to one another, with the goal being to provide users with smarter, more efficient experiences. Some recent examples of IoT products include the Nest Protect smoke detector and August door locks . Fifty years ago, according to Asimov,  the three laws of Robotics where written down at the " Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D .”  and are listed below, A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot

An #API solution for the Greek Crisis

Εικόνα
After the Greek Referendum of the 5th of July, a new day has started in Greece. Banks are closed, transactions with e-banking and credit cards are limited only to national ones and in general, economy has virtually stopped. I had to admit that I was honoured by Digital Ocean  last week, because when the referendum was announced and when banks closed, they chose to send an email that they support Greece and they would not shut down our servers and various services until the situation was resolved. One the other hand, Paypal BrainTree Itunes had to follow a different approach. They send mail notifications to their developers that they had to be extremely cautious regarding Greek transactions. This is extremely logical and those are huge companies that try to protect their clients, and those clients their own clients. But.... My approach in all this situation is that Greek economy should be relieved by opening the banks, enabling Greek developers again continuing working o

One day at the WS-REST workshop in Florence

Εικόνα
I am really excited to write this article. I indeed had a wonderful time participating both as a presenter as well as an attendee for my first ever  ws-rest  workshop which is collocated each year with the famous WWW conference . The program was full of interesting topics, regarding (what else) discussions about REST practices, research and new ideas. I am borrowing its description here! Web APIs for a Web in evolution The Web is changing at a tremendous speed, and Web APIs play an important part in that. In fact, the number of Web APIs is growing so quickly that we face many challenges. The WS-REST workshop series aim to connect Web researchers and engineers to tackle the issues we are facing. Many of them are not solved by far: How to dynamically integrate Web APIs? How to create intelligent clients for Web APIs? How can we deal with the enormous growth and diversity? Session 1 First, to kick start the session,  Erik Wilde  had the floor for a super interesting k

What is the Semantic Web?

The Semantic Web is an idea of World Wide Web inventor  Tim Berners-Lee  that the Web as a whole can be made more intelligent and perhaps even intuitive about how to serve a user's needs. Berners-Lee observes that although  search engine s index much of the Web's content, they have little ability to select the pages that a user really wants or needs. He foresees a number of ways in which developers and authors, singly or in collaborations, can use self-descriptions and other techniques so that context-understanding programs can selectively find what users want. Web 2.0 Is Not the Semantic Web Web 2.0 is all about people. It's a social thing. The second generation of the World Wide Web is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Where the Web contains static  HTML  pages, Web 2.0 is  dynamic , in that it serves applications to users and offers open communications with an emphasis on Web-based communities. Web 2.0, because it focu

PyAPI: A python library to play with various API Standards, like Hydra, Swagger, RAML and more

Εικόνα
Ever been in a situation where your manager asks you to write documentation for the APIs that you developed? Let’s face it, if you’re like most developers, you love to code and hate to write. Furthermore, writing takes time away from critical tasks you need to do, such as feature development and bug fixing. It’s no surprise that API documentation often ends up being frustrating and confusing for the reader—it rarely gets the attention it deserves. Hopefully nowadays there are many nice tools to document your APIs .  Why Document Your APIs? Let’s start with the non-technical side of the issue. API documentation has been around ever since the first programming languages were created. There’s been plenty of time to develop effective processes for creating quality documentation, yet well-written API documentation is still quite rare. Why doesn’t it happen? First, documentation is seldom prioritized. Even though it has a large impact on how much a software platform is adopted,

How do you document your APIs?

Well documented APIs enhance the experience for developers and have become an essential requirement for defining an API's success. Good documentation is no longer just about clarity of the prose but also improving the affordance of documents as live API experiences for developers. As a result, there are a variety of tools targeted at API producers to automate the process of generating richer documents that reduces costs and time and dramatically improves developer adoption. Given the fact that APIs are becoming the face of businesses and that documentation plays such a vital role in its adoption, we want to know which of these tools you are using or intend to use and your opinion on their relative relevance: Swagger  - A specification and complete framework implementation for describing, producing, consuming, and visualizing RESTful web services. Swagger is language agnostic. Mashery I/O Docs - Mashery I/O Docs uses a JSON schema to describe APIs resources, methods and para