I regularly participate to CFP (Call For Proposals) aiming to choose a software solution. My role is to analyze solutions from an API perspective. And I do that even if there’s no specific API concern regarding the context in which the CFP is made. Why doing so and what to look at? This should be of interest for people having to choose a solution but also to people proposing them. Indeed, some (corporate) software solution vendors should take this seriously … Unless they want to finish at the bottom of the list.

If you’re an API design reviewer and, like the Who, you got a feeling inside that you can’t explain during an API design review, maybe you’re falling in love with the API designer… or more probably: you’re on the verge of giving an opinion. And that is a problem. What is the role of an API design reviewer? Distort API designs to their liking or objectively analyze them based on facts?

C’est avec un grand plaisir que j’ai répondu à l’invitation de Stéphane Beuret pour parler d’API (en français pour une fois) dans son podcast Electro Monkeys. On y parle de lavabo, de mon livre (The Design of Web APIs, en anglais lui) mais aussi et surtout de design d’API, de sécurité, cycle de vie et gestion des erreurs. Toutes ces choses auxquelles il faut penser pour faire de bonnes API Web.

If you want to discover the OpenAPI Specification format, this video is for you! In my first ever (recorded) live coding session, given at the 2021 Manning API Conference, I demonstrate basic, advanced, and even hidden features that will help you to efficiently create complete, accurate, and maintainable API descriptions when designing documenting APIs.

I started this project with a simple API Design Guidelines list in mind and ended with a fully analyzed collection of API design guidelines. I created it for others but I use it myself too. When I wonder how to handle some API design matters, I select the related topic and read how others handle it. To be honest, it needs some refresh, it is a real pain to update and maintain and could be more user friendly; that’s on my todo list.

I built the OpenAPI map because I was constantly searching for “how do this with the OpenAPI spec” and also “but where is that thing” in the specification. Having the OpenAPI specification represented as a tree given essential information and quick access to source documentation of each element saved me countless time.