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As any engineer knows, most software applications have APIs; it’s simply a business choice whether to publish them or not. This makes it sound like opening an
by kohanz 11y ago
As any engineer knows, most software applications have APIs; it’s simply a business choice whether to publish them or not.
This makes it sound like opening an API up to the public is akin to flipping on a light switch, which as we all know is rather misleading. There are significant investments and expenditures (documentation, support, etc.) to make if you want to properly serve up a public API and no, not every company does those things as a side effect of developing a product.
- JoblessWonder 11y agoTotally agree. And I'm not sure it is safe to say that "most" software applications have APIs in the sense the author means.
- eitally 11y agoIn enterprise, unless it's been written in the last 5 years, the odds are good that it doesn't have APIs. Or, if it does have APIs and was written in the past 10 years, those APIs are only intended for internal (within the app itself) consumption and could never, ever be used externally.
- JoblessWonder 11y agoYeah. From my experience, public API's are only opened up when there is enough money generated from them to fund someone dedicated to managing/implementing them.
- Terr_ 11y agoRight, a (public) API is actually a product, just one that happens to be consumed by programmers. Starting one means implicitly committing to support the people who use it and grow it in a backwards-compatible manner even when your internal data representation goes in another direction.