Ten Reasons Developers Hate Your API
268 likes140,308 views
The document outlines ten reasons developers dislike APIs, emphasizing issues such as poor documentation, lack of communication, complex onboarding processes, and reliability problems. It provides various solutions to these issues, including improving clarity, enhancing discoverability, and ensuring clearer terms of service. Recommendations are given to create a better developer experience through interactive documentation, clearer support channels, and consistent updates.
Ten Reasons Developers Hate Your API
- 1. 10ReasonsDevelopers HateYourAPI (andwhattodoaboutit) John Musser @johnmusser / API Science @apiscience GlueCon, 2014
- 14. RAML RESTful API Modeling Language! raml.org!
- 22. Forum http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/soundcloud! FIX #5
- 23. EmailFIX #6
- 27. Fastsignup https://manage.stripe.com/register! FIX #2 (so fast, you can even skip this step till you’re convinced…)
- 34. ISSUES Commercialrestrictions Notsetupforwin-win NoSLA Ratelimit/throttlingissues It’sallaboutyou
- 37. Shorter=BetterFIX #3 http://googledevelopers.blogspot.com! “Beginning today, most of our APIs use a single Terms of Service. We have rewri%en these terms from the ground up with the goals of making them concise and easier to understand. …. In this rewrite, we have removed over 125,000 words from the combined previous terms …”
- 38. Page 23
- 44. Change (planned) BugOutage APIs can break Rate limit ToS violation Change (undocumented) Provider biz change Network
- 45. Breaking bad
- 46. Don’t let this happen to you GET http://api.yourcompany.com/resource/142! !
- 62. HackathonsFIX #3
- 65. ISSUES Terse,crypticerrormessages NoJSONsupport Your“REST”APIdoesn’tuseHTTPrules YoustilluseSOAP
- 66. UseRESTFIX #1 API protocols and styles Based on directory of 5,100 web APIs listed at ProgrammableWeb, February 2012
- 67. UseJSONFIX #2 Percentage of APIs supporting JSON vs XML Based on directory 11,000 web APIs listed at ProgrammableWeb, Dec 2013
- 68. XML vs. JSON in new APIs Based on new APIs listed at ProgrammableWeb in 2013
- 69. BepragmaticFIX #3 http://apigee.com/about/content/web-api-design! Web API Design, Brian Mulloy
- 71. What’s your TTFHW? Time To First “Hello World” aka: how long from zero to 60?
- 77. KeeplearningFIX #2 apidays.io apistrategyconference.com www.gluecon.com apicon.programmableweb.com iloveapis2013.com apiconference.com
- 78. FIX #3 Remember: An API is a journey, not a destination
- 79. Thank You QuesMons, ideas, comments? [email protected] @johnmusser
- 80. Photo credits Race car: hQp://www.flickr.com/photos/lim_lik_wei/3270522646/ Winding road: hQp://www.flickr.com/photos/maQhewthecoolguy/7518274258/