We've teamed up with James Higginbotham of LaunchAny and Keith Casey of Casey Software to bring you their hand-curated weekly newsletter for API developers. You can subscribe to the API Developer Weekly email newsletter here.
Also, be sure to check out James's and Keith's new book A Practical Approach to API Design on Leanpub.
Hot Topics
How do APIs help build a business platform?
5 lessons on how to transform your business and industry into a platform that enables customers to build on top of your API. Companies discussed include WalmartLabs, Twilio, and Evernote.
Swagger Creator Wants to Build Better SOAP for Web APIs
An article from a recent discussion with Tony Tam, the creator Swagger and CEO of Reverb on the Swagger 2.0 Working Group, recent news, and his views on completing web API definition languages.
Heroku's HTTP API Design Guide
A look at how Heroku built their internal HTTP platform API that drives everything both internally and for platform partners.
MQTT - Another Implementor's Perspective
Tim Kellogg looks at what can be improved with MQTT, a protocol commonly used for connecting devices, to make it better.
Restaurant Menus As Analogy For API Copyright
"One of the interesting conversations that came out of the APIStrat Un-Workshops at Gluecon this week, was the exploration of the analogy of applying copyright to restaurant menus, and applying copyright to APIs. This type of conversations is why 3Scale and API Evangelist support these types of events."
The Business of APIs
Hardware isn't just cool anymore, it is lucrative
Three of the four largest tech acquisitions in 2014 have been hardware deals. This article looks at the impact of these recent acquisitions, beyond the "hardware is sexy" narrative.
Much ado about HomeKit, the new Apple smart home framework
"Apple unveiled HomeKit, a smart home play that relies heavily on third-party software and developers. In this week’s podcast we talk to four different people about their thoughts on this news."
Marvell outfits its chips for the internet of things
"Marvell has designed silicon and software for the internet of things that indicates which features and vendors will be important in the years to come. Surprise. It’s a Zigbee fan."
Hypermedia API provides flexibility, standardization to public media organizations
Although hypermedia APIs may not be a fit for every situation, they can be a powerful option when both standardization and flexibility are needed for cross-organizational data. That’s a key reason why a hypermedia API lies at the core of the Public Media Platform (PMP), a collaborative project among five of the country’s leading public media organizations.
API Development
Generate fake SQL data using JavaScript
A Javascript-based tool that will generate INSERT SQL statements for fake SQL data, based on your generation rules. The code is available via Github.
Benchmark your REST API using bench-rest
A video that introduces the bench-rest framework for benchmarking your REST API. Written in Node.js and available via Github.
Beyond REST and SOA: Introducing Agent-Oriented Architecture
A look at what works (and what doesn't) for REST APIs in the enterprise, and how an Agent-Oriented Architecture (AOA) might be an alternative solution for some solutions.
Cloud Watch (from Cloud Developer Weekly Newsletter)
Bootstrap to Billions on AWS
CopperEgg's CTO, Eric Anderson, looks at scaling a company using AWS, finding the balance between leveraging AWS for scaling and over-engineering, and how to control costs as you scale.
IBM adds extensions to its BlueMix Cloud Platform
"The extensions to IBM Bluemix include a version of IBM’s AppScan testing tool, an Embeddable Reporting service based on IBM analytics, a JavaScript-based set of IBM Workflow services to orchestrate development processes and a Continuous Delivery Pipeline service for managing the application release cycle."
In cloud infrastructure the biggest (Amazon) stays big, but Microsoft shows progress
"Gartner’s closely watched Magic Quadrant for cloud Infrastructure as a Service shows AWS in its usual top slot, but Microsoft makes a strong showing."
Video: Glen Ford on Building Great Teams, Lean and DevOps
A video+transcribed interview with Glen Ford, Chief Architect of zeebox, that covers the dynamics of building a great team, how to apply lean principles, and how to integrate DevOps into your organization.
Ansible’s View on IT Automation
A new series that looks at the various configuration management tools. This first edition looks at how Ansible sees the world of IT Automation, from the driving principles to how Ansible is designed to an overview of how it works.
Want to share something?
As always, if you want to chat, share a link, or make a suggestion, feel free to drop us a quick note using Twitter ( @launchany and @caseysoftware) or by emailing us at: james@launchany.com.