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. On to the links!
Hot Topics
HTTP/1.1 gets a major update
A look at the recent updates and clarifications to the older RFC2616 specification for HTTP/1.1, and what it means for Web and API developers. The full list of new RFCs can be found here
Developer Experience (DX) is key to a successful API
A look at what makes a great API (and what doesn't).
UBER: A New Hypermedia Format for APIs
"Mike Amundsen, author of "Building Hypermedia APIs with HTML5 and Node" and "RESTful Web APIs", has recently announced a new media type design that he's been working on. It's called UBER hypermedia, which stands for "Uniform Basis for Exchanging Representations"
Usability Review: Dropbox API
"Dropbox API usability tests were performed by developers with a range of experience six to eight years working with all the major programming languages. All tests were done using Node.js on three different platforms"
5 Reasons to Use Protocol Buffers Instead of JSON For Your Next Service
"New, smaller services typically...use JSON to communicate over HTTP. Though JSON has many obvious advantages as a data interchange format - it is human readable, well understood, and typically performs well - it also has its issues."
The Business of APIs
Raspberry Pi has sold 3 million units, makes appearance at Buckingham Palace
Two updates about Raspberry Pi, including being recognized by Prince William at Buckingham Palace.
Most IT pros not actively preparing for the impact of the IoT
"Spiceworks, the professional network for IT, today announced the results of a new report that explores IT professionals’ perceptions of the Internet of Things (IoT), steps they’re taking to prepare, and how they believe it will impact their environment."
Node-RED makes designing IoT flows a snap
The Internet of Things (IoT) is coming, and while issues around standards and protocols are still being ironed out, a growing number of developers, companies and entrepreneurs are flocking to the space in the hopes of staking a claim in what many believe will be technology's next great frontier.
APIs and the Education Ecosystem
A look at the RFC that Apigee provided to the Department of Education regarding the use of APIs in higher education.
API Development
Comparing Express, Restify, hapi and LoopBack for building RESTful APIs
"If you are writing a Node.js application, chances are you going to have some kind of API end points to be consumed by your front end or expose data for others to take in. This is where RESTful APIs come in. And now you have a dilemma – what tools to use and what approach to take?"
How to use APIs to spot the International Space Station (ISS)
Putting the NASA RSS feed with a weather API to determine the next clear, starry night to observe the ISS.
Create a Neo4j Graph Database Using the REST API
How to use the Neo4j REST API to construct and query graph structures. Part of 1 of a 2-part series.
A CRM with Neo4j and REST
Build a CRM using Neo4j and the REST API. Part of 2 of a 2-part series.
Help Developers Understand What To Do Next With Your API Response
A reminder that Hypermedia APIs mimic the web by providing links to the next actions for your client.
Cloud Watch (from Cloud Developer Weekly Newsletter)
Everything At Google Runs In Containers
"The result is that Google starts over 2 billion containers per week, over 3000 started per second, not counting long-running containers."
Google Embraces Docker, the Next Big Thing in Cloud Computing
A look at how Google's acceptance of container-based deployment, specifically using Docker, and how it will help Google jump into the hybrid cloud space as containers are moved in and out of their platform as needed.
Firing Up 75K VMs On OpenStack In An Afternoon
"To give potential customers an idea of how quickly cloud capacity can be brought up on bare metal, commercial Linux distributor Canonical, which provides support for the Ubuntu Server variant of Linux, and AMD, which peddles the SeaMicro line of microservers, recently put the Ubuntu OpenStack variant of the popular open source cloud controller through the paces."
Devops is a verb: its all about feedback
A Slideshare presentation from a recent Atlassian presentation on why Devops is fundamentally about solving a communication problem, not just a process problem.
How We Use Docker For Continuous Delivery – Part 1
"We have recently deployed a sophisticated Docker based Continuous Delivery pipeline for a client of ours, which is working extremely well...In this article we will describe why we have found Docker to be an excellent choice for Continuous Delivery, particularly in a our SOA and MicroService environment."
Getting Started with Chef on Amazon AWS
A tutorial from CloudAcademy on how to use Chef with Amazon AWS by setting up a Chef server and workstation using Ubuntu instances on EC2.
An Introduction to AWS OpsWorks With Tips And Tricks
"With OpsWorks, AWS enables us to deploy full application stacks in the Cloud while retaining control over the details of the deployment. There are no constraints on what we can tell our EC2 instances to do, provided that we can either reuse, extend or replace AWS’s cookbooks."
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.