Category Archives: Opinion

Predictive APIs: Bringing Machine Learning to the Masses

We are on the brink of entering the Second Machine Age. Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, the authors of the book with the same title, assert that today’s modern, digital machines very soon will do “for our mental power […] what the steam engine and its descendants did for muscle power” as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution (i.e., the First Machine Age).

PAPIs.io 2014

Self-driving cars doing 700,000 miles accident-free are a great example. Vinod Khosla – top investor, technology fan, founder of Khosla Ventures and founding CEO of Sun Microsystems – is passionate about Machine Learning, too, and claims that “in the next 20 years, machine learning will have more impact than mobile has” (source: TechCrunch).

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How to design APIs that last

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[Caveat: this is focused on HTTP-based, or REST APIs]

In the software world, we often refer to building ‘extensible’ designs. In essence, this means that we can build a system that is light and nimble, capable of changing and growing over time.

In the world of API design, we can’t always make rapid changes. Many API clients become dependent on existing functionality.

Think about this from the perspective of sustainability:
How long can we keep and grow this design?
How long before we have to start over on another version?

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Time To Leave Your Keys At Home Or Better Yet Trash Them Forever

Who are the best API Product Managers?

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When I look around the little village of API specialists within the tech world, there are an increasing number, in the last year, with the title “API Product Manager”. Keep in mind that just a few years ago, this job title didn’t exist. There are so many other roles involved in what it takes to lead the build-out of high quality APIs. In my experience, the de facto product owner (title or not) for APIs needs to represent an amalgamation of roles to be the most effective.
The roles listed here are my perspective on what it takes. However, I’d consider this a survey of sorts, and I’d encourage you to leave comments about your perspective.
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Dark Matter in the API Universe

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In the late 20th century, scientists began to flirt with proof that there is dark matter in our universe. As we learned that as much as 96% of the mass of the universe is represented by something we cannot observe, we’re entering a new era of understanding about the nature of matter. However, the struggle in this field is that we only have a measurable knowledge that these things exist, and educated guesses about how much of the universe is comprised of this yet undescribed material.
Integrated software systems using few standards beyond HTTP, better known as Web APIs, now seem to have something in common with dark matter. There are far more organizations building private, or internal-only, APIs as opposed to public API programs. As an industry, this perspective can not be overlooked, and has the potential to change the way we think about developing APIs.

Image credit: http://cosmicweb.uchicago.edu/filaments.html

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API UX

Everything about API User Experience