DZone
Integration Zone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
  • Refcardz
  • Trend Reports
  • Webinars
  • Zones
  • |
    • Agile
    • AI
    • Big Data
    • Cloud
    • Database
    • DevOps
    • Integration
    • IoT
    • Java
    • Microservices
    • Open Source
    • Performance
    • Security
    • Web Dev
DZone > Integration Zone > API Definitions Are Slowly Becoming More Important Than Having SDKs

API Definitions Are Slowly Becoming More Important Than Having SDKs

With the advent of new tools, technologies, and best practices, exploring APIs has become a more all-encompassing part of the lifecycle.

Kin Lane user avatar by
Kin Lane
·
Aug. 18, 16 · Integration Zone · Opinion
Like (2)
Save
Tweet
1.84K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

As the debate over whether you need an SDK for your API or not has rumbled over the last couple of years, API specification formats like OpenAPI Spec, Postman, and API Blueprint have been gaining traction. As this has progressed, I've asked myself several times whether or not API providers even need SDKs anymore. Not just because of the complexities of developing and maintaining them, but because more developers are using web clients like Postman and DHC to evolve their integrations.

Apigee Explorer and Swagger UI documentation demonstrated that many developers needed to play with an API as they were learning about what resources were available and how to use them. I think the evolution of API clients like Postman, DHC, PAW, and others have shown that this phase of playing, exploration, and non-code integration can go well beyond just integration and should actually be neverending across stops along the API life cycle.

It is just anecdotal at the moment, but looking at the API providers who have embedded the Get Postman Button on their sites like Clearbit, Cronofy, Best Buy, and SparkPost, it seems to me that having your API definition available for your developers is growing more important than having SDKs. Developers are getting more traction by loading the Postman Collection, and other common specification format into their client, testing, and other tooling, than they are cracking open the language library of their choice.

This is something I'll further validate through my research. One critique I have on this is that I'm seeing the benefits of this approach focus around Postman, which I'm a big fan of, and a user, but represents just a handful of stops along the API life cycle (client, testing), and not the wider spectrum that OpenAPI Spec and API Blueprint would offer. I have yet to see any of these formats follow my advice like Postman did and get to work on an embeddable solution for OpenAPI Spec and API Blueprint — giving Postman a significant headstart.

API providers need to be openly sharing their API definitions, API service providers need to be allowing for the run in, and import using the common API specification formats, and developers need to be fluent in these formats and functionality, as they will play an important role in the evolution of the space — one that I think will be more significant than the role SDKs have played, after this plays out.

API

Published at DZone with permission of Kin Lane, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • Why Blockchain Technology Is the Future of Data Storage
  • GraphQL in Enterprise: What It Takes to Build, Deploy, and Monitor a New Enterprise GraphQL Service
  • The Ultimate Software Engineering Job Search Guide
  • SRE From Theory to Practice: What's Difficult About On-Call?

Comments

Integration Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • MVB Program
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends:

DZone.com is powered by 

AnswerHub logo