API Driven Development

This talk focuses on developer/user interaction, the philosophy behind the code we write, service oriented architecture, and layering APIs.

1. API Driven Development Kenneth Reitz How I Develop Things and Why. Thursday, October 11, 12
2. Hi. Thursday, October 11, 12
3. @kennethreitz Thursday, October 11, 12
4. Thursday, October 11, 12
5. Open Source Thursday, October 11, 12
6. Requests HTTP for Humans Thursday, October 11, 12
7. Httpbin.org $ curl http://httpbin.org/get?test=1 { "url": "http://httpbin.org/get", "headers": { "Content-Length": "", "Connection": "keep-alive", "Accept": "*/*", "User-Agent": "curl/7.21.4 ...", "Host": "httpbin.org", "Content-Type": "" }, "args": { “test”: “1” }, "origin": "67.163.102.42" } Thursday, October 11, 12
8. Et Cetera • Legit: Git Work ow for Humans • Envoy: Subprocess for Humans • Tablib: Tabular Data for Humans • Clint: CLI App Toolkit • Autoenv: Magic Shell Environments • OSX-GCC-Installer: Provokes Lawyers 275+ More Thursday, October 11, 12
9. Purpose Thursday, October 11, 12
10. We’re Diverse. • Product guys: non-tech cofounders • Sales guys: hustlers • Marketers: spammers • Designers: pixel pushers • Developers: code monkeys We come from many backgrounds. Thursday, October 11, 12
11. What do we have in common? Thursday, October 11, 12
12. We’re Makers. • Product guys: visionaries • Sales guys: sustainability • Marketers: communication • Designers: experience and philosophy • Developers: make the magic happen We craft experiences & interfaces. Thursday, October 11, 12
13. Developers! Developers, Developers, Developers. Thursday, October 11, 12
14. — Steve Jobs, 1983 People are going to be spending two or three hours a day with these machines — more than they spend with a car. Thursday, October 11, 12
15. — Steve Jobs, 1983 Software design must be given at least as much consideration as we give automobiles today — if not a lot more. Thursday, October 11, 12
16. That worked. Thursday, October 11, 12
17. Beautiful Interfaces. • Industrial Design • Web Interfaces • iOS, Android, Mobile Apps • Desktop Clients & Applications Today, beautiful applications abound. Thursday, October 11, 12
18. Hackers are the real Makers. Thursday, October 11, 12
19. Developers spend 8+ hours a day with APIs. Why are they treated di erently? Thursday, October 11, 12
20. Web Application Thursday, October 11, 12
21. Web Application Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Thursday, October 11, 12
22. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Thursday, October 11, 12
23. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks Thursday, October 11, 12
24. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
25. Thursday, October 11, 12
26. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
27. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
28. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
29. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
30. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
31. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
32. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
33. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
34. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
35. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
36. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
37. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
38. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
39. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
40. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
41. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
42. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
43. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
44. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
45. Web Application Management Tools Supporting Services Tools & Utilities Web Process Worker Process Scheduled Tasks Deferred Tasks API Service CRUD Admin Data Persistence User Interface Authentication Thursday, October 11, 12
46. Thursday, October 11, 12
47. End Users Thursday, October 11, 12
48. End Users Developers Thursday, October 11, 12
49. End Users API Service Developers Thursday, October 11, 12
50. API Service End Users API Service Developers Thursday, October 11, 12
51. API Service End Users API Service Developers Thursday, October 11, 12
52. API Service End Users API Service API Service Developers Thursday, October 11, 12
53. API Service End Users API Service API Service Developers ( ) Thursday, October 11, 12
54. API Service End Users API Service API Service Developers ( ) Data Persistence Thursday, October 11, 12
55. API Service End Users API Service Internal API Service Developers ( ) Data Persistence Thursday, October 11, 12
56. API Service End Users API Service Internal API Service Developers ( ) Data Persistence Message Queue Workers Thursday, October 11, 12
57. Everything is a remix*. * APIs Rule Everything Around Us. Thursday, October 11, 12
58. How? Thursday, October 11, 12
59. Step I: Have an Issue. Thursday, October 11, 12
60. A Real, Tangible Problem. You can't solve a problem properly if you don't experience it rsthand. Thursday, October 11, 12
61. Example: OneNote. • Hierarchical, freeform note-taking software that assumes nothing. • Only available on Windows. • I want to make OneNote for OS X. • It would be incredible. The nest note-taking platform on earth. Thursday, October 11, 12
62. GitHub Success • GitHub wasn't built for the developer community at large. • Resonated with millions of developers. • They themselves happen to be developers. Over two million people collaborating. Thursday, October 11, 12
63. Other’s Success • Gumroad, built for the founder. • 37 Signals product, build for the team. • Ruby on Rails, by Rubyists for Rubyists. Thursday, October 11, 12
64. Optimization • Feature driven development? • Pro t driven development? • Growth driven development? • Problem driven development. What drives your decisions? Thursday, October 11, 12
65. pra•gmat•ic |pragˈmatik|, adj: Dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations Thursday, October 11, 12
66. Requests Success • Python is a language built for Humans. • Why should HTTP be non-trivial? • I explored and discovered what I really needed, and built it. • I had a real problem that I solved for myself. Thursday, October 11, 12
67. Requests Success • At rst, Requests was far from powerful. • But, it deeply resonated with people. • Features grew over time, but the API was never compromised. • Quite popular. Thursday, October 11, 12
68. Developers spend 8+ hours a day with APIs. Build for yourself—a developer. Thursday, October 11, 12
69. Step II: Respond. Thursday, October 11, 12
70. Write the README. Thursday, October 11, 12
71. • Before any code is written, write the README — show some examples. • Write some code with the theoretical code that you’ve documented. Thursday, October 11, 12
72. Achievement Unlocked! • Instead of engineering something to get the job done, you interact with the problem itself and build an interface that reacts to it. • You discover it. You respond to it. Thursday, October 11, 12
73. • Great sculptures aren’t engineered or manufactured—they’re discovered. • The sculptor studies and listens to the marble. He identi es with it. • Then, he responds. • Setting free something hidden that inside all along. Sculptures, Etc. Thursday, October 11, 12
74. • It’s not about a design that will “work” on a phone, tablet, and desktop. • It’s about making something that identi es itself enough to respond to the environment it’s placed in. • Free of arbitrary constraints. Responsive Design Thursday, October 11, 12
75. Readme-Driven Development? Responsive API Design. Thursday, October 11, 12
76. Step III: Build. Thursday, October 11, 12
77. • Once you discover the API: build it. • Write all the code necessary to make exactly what you documented happen. • Complex code? Layer your API. • “Porcelain” layer is documented. Responsive Design Thursday, October 11, 12
78. The API is all that matters. Everything else is secondary. Thursday, October 11, 12
79. Do unto others as you would have them do to you? Build tools for others that you want to be built for you. Thursday, October 11, 12
80. Pro Tips™ Thursday, October 11, 12
81. CONSTRAINTS FOSTER CREATIVITY Thursday, October 11, 12
82. Open Source All The Things! Thursday, October 11, 12
83. Build for Open Source • Components become concise & decoupled. • Concerns separate themselves. • Best practices emerge (e.g. no creds in code). • Documentation and tests become crucial. • Code can be released at any time. Thursday, October 11, 12
84. Build for Open Source • Components become concise & decoupled. • Concerns separate themselves. • Best practices emerge (e.g. no creds in code). • Documentation and tests become crucial. • Code can be released at any time. Thursday, October 11, 12
85. Build for Services • Components become concise & decoupled. • Concerns seperate themselves. • Best practices emerge (e.g. ideal tools). • Documentation and contracts become crucial. • Services can be scaled separately at any time • Dogfood is delicious. Thursday, October 11, 12
86. — Pieter Hintjens Simplicity is always better than functionality. Thursday, October 11, 12
87. github.com/kennethreitz Questions? Thursday, October 11, 12