4 ms·

I was looking at ChatGPT plugins today and they use the OpenAPI convention. Is it called OpenAPI because it was created by "Open"AI or it's something completely

I was looking at ChatGPT plugins today and they use the OpenAPI convention. Is it called OpenAPI because it was created by "Open"AI or it's something completely independent of OpenAI that they chose to adopt?

keithwhor 3y ago
The naming is completely coincidental and probably a little confusing / unfortunate. OpenAPI is a rebranding of Swagger, a really popular open source API specification. Incidentally the OpenAPI initiative only predates OpenAI by a month so I don’t think Sam, Greg & co could have known better at the time. But OpenAPI is the “gold standard” machine readable API specification format so it makes sense that OpenAI would rely on it!
- KronisLV 3y ago
  > But OpenAPI is the “gold standard” machine readable API specification format I remember when that would have been WSDL, with something like SoapUI - where you'd feed in the service description file from whatever service you want to interact with and would get a functional API client. It also had codegen that let you end up with full client stubs in Java or another language, or are able to generate the WSDL file from your server code as well: https://www.soapui.org/docs/soap-and-wsdl/working-with-wsdls/ https://www.soapui.org/docs/soap-and-wsdl/working-with-wsdls... It's nice to see OpenAPI/Swagger finally catching up, because to me the codegen aspects felt insufficient there for the longest time - if your server code determines what responses to requests it will return, why on earth would you ever want to write the OpenAPI specs manually? It's the same as with ORMs - if you already have a database schema setup on a server somewhere (with SQL migrations, say with dbmate), all of your local entity mappings should be easily generated in a schema-first approach, you shouldn't have to write a single line of code for that. The latest service I'm building is in .NET and they actually have that covered really nicely: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/tutorials/getting-started-with-swashbuckle?view=aspnetcore-7.0&tabs=visual-studio https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/tutorials/gett... And the Rider IDE there also has nice schema-first tooling, even if a bit niche: https://blog.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2022/01/31/entity-framework-core-inside-rider-ui-way/#existing-database-scaffolding https://blog.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2022/01/31/entity-framewor... Model driven development and codegen feel like they definitely belong for boilerplate heavy uses cases like this, where you can also almost perfectly describe the end result that you need based on what you have!
  - theryan 3y ago
    Many years ago I was connecting APIs from ~100 companies into our application, they all essentially did the same thing -- update information in our system based on a tracking number. At this time, about half were web APIs and half were WSDLs. The WSDL APIs were by and large the easiest to work with, I didn't have to write much of any code. On the other hand, the web APIs required me to have a custom flow for each and every one and they could break at any point without me knowing. I've seen a lot of hate on WSDLs throughout the years but they were honestly really productive for getting work done.
mstibbard 3y ago
OpenAPI predates OpenAI by quite some time. OpenAI has adopted usage of OpenAPI. I do find myself accidentally saying one and meaning the other, in both directions too!
- keithwhor 3y ago
  Actually only a month! I just looked it up and was surprised myself.
  - mstibbard 3y ago
    According to Wikipedia[1] it looks like the rebranding effort from Swagger -> OpenAPI was in November 2015, but the OpenAPI Specification was only officially renamed on 1st January 2016. OpenAI was founded on 10th December 2015. So it depends how pedantic we are being -- technically on branding, OpenAI predates OpenAPI by 21 days. In terms of the spec itself (as in, the thing they adopted), Swagger v1 was released August 2011. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAPI_Specification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAPI_Specification
    - keithwhor 3y ago
      Worry not, this is Hacker News. Pedantry is more valuable as currency than H100s here.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

keithwhor 3y ago

The naming is completely coincidental and probably a little confusing / unfortunate. OpenAPI is a rebranding of Swagger, a really popular open source API specification. Incidentally the OpenAPI initiative only predates OpenAI by a month so I don’t think Sam, Greg & co could have known better at the time. But OpenAPI is the “gold standard” machine readable API specification format so it makes sense that OpenAI would rely on it!

KronisLV 3y ago
> But OpenAPI is the “gold standard” machine readable API specification format I remember when that would have been WSDL, with something like SoapUI - where you'd feed in the service description file from whatever service you want to interact with and would get a functional API client. It also had codegen that let you end up with full client stubs in Java or another language, or are able to generate the WSDL file from your server code as well: https://www.soapui.org/docs/soap-and-wsdl/working-with-wsdls/ https://www.soapui.org/docs/soap-and-wsdl/working-with-wsdls... It's nice to see OpenAPI/Swagger finally catching up, because to me the codegen aspects felt insufficient there for the longest time - if your server code determines what responses to requests it will return, why on earth would you ever want to write the OpenAPI specs manually? It's the same as with ORMs - if you already have a database schema setup on a server somewhere (with SQL migrations, say with dbmate), all of your local entity mappings should be easily generated in a schema-first approach, you shouldn't have to write a single line of code for that. The latest service I'm building is in .NET and they actually have that covered really nicely: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/tutorials/getting-started-with-swashbuckle?view=aspnetcore-7.0&tabs=visual-studio https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/tutorials/gett... And the Rider IDE there also has nice schema-first tooling, even if a bit niche: https://blog.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2022/01/31/entity-framework-core-inside-rider-ui-way/#existing-database-scaffolding https://blog.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2022/01/31/entity-framewor... Model driven development and codegen feel like they definitely belong for boilerplate heavy uses cases like this, where you can also almost perfectly describe the end result that you need based on what you have!
- theryan 3y ago
  Many years ago I was connecting APIs from ~100 companies into our application, they all essentially did the same thing -- update information in our system based on a tracking number. At this time, about half were web APIs and half were WSDLs. The WSDL APIs were by and large the easiest to work with, I didn't have to write much of any code. On the other hand, the web APIs required me to have a custom flow for each and every one and they could break at any point without me knowing. I've seen a lot of hate on WSDLs throughout the years but they were honestly really productive for getting work done.

mstibbard 3y ago

OpenAPI predates OpenAI by quite some time. OpenAI has adopted usage of OpenAPI. I do find myself accidentally saying one and meaning the other, in both directions too!

keithwhor 3y ago
Actually only a month! I just looked it up and was surprised myself.
- mstibbard 3y ago
  According to Wikipedia[1] it looks like the rebranding effort from Swagger -> OpenAPI was in November 2015, but the OpenAPI Specification was only officially renamed on 1st January 2016. OpenAI was founded on 10th December 2015. So it depends how pedantic we are being -- technically on branding, OpenAI predates OpenAPI by 21 days. In terms of the spec itself (as in, the thing they adopted), Swagger v1 was released August 2011. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAPI_Specification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAPI_Specification
  - keithwhor 3y ago
    Worry not, this is Hacker News. Pedantry is more valuable as currency than H100s here.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]