“Hard to Get to A Consensus on Best Practices”

September 29th, 2017

Ole Lensmar’s session.

Ole Lensmar is the co-founder of Eviware Software which was acquired by SmartBear in 2011, where he now works as Chief Technology Officer. At Eviware Software, Ole created SoapUI, now the most used open source testing tool in the world.

“I started working with APIs when I was building system integrations in the late 90s for online applications – we started off with XML over HTTP, moved to SOAP – and then later REST”, Lensmar says.

According to Ole Lensmar, the best thing about APIs is the fast moving culture, in regards to technologies, approaches, patterns, tooling, and so on.

“It’s always fun to learn new things, but it’s hard to settle on any of these – it’s hard to get to a consensus or alignment on best practices. You know that whatever you do there is a pretty high risk it will be somewhat out-dated in 6-12 months, Lensmar explains.”

Lensmar speaks frequently on the importance of API testing and other related topics, and at the 2017 Platform Summit he’ll talk about “The Magic Behind Faster API Development, Testing and Delivery with API Virtualization”.

“API events are a great way for API providers and consumers to keep up with API-related trends in regard to design, technology, business, and ecosystems.”

At the event, Lensmar hopes to experience how matured APIs, “API 2.0” as he calls them, have progressed from both technological and business point of views. He’s especially excited to learn from developers, teams, and businesses that have been working with APIs for a couple of years now:

“I want to know how they are now leveraging [that knowledge] to drive their products/businesses.”

What will take APIs to the next level to drive the exceedingly connected digital frontier?

“Alignment and pragmatism on technical concepts / standards across the API industry.”

Which future trends do you see emerging within the API industry?

Continued focus on Developer Experience to deliver competitive APIs. REST will continue to be complemented by RPC/Async APIs, and driven by the IoT. Also, continued awareness and focus on APIs as a business enabler. Although we in the API community have been talking about this for a long time, businesses still have a long way of catching up.

“You Owe It to Yourself to Attend”

September 20th, 2017

Adam Duvander’s keynote.

Adam DuVander loves APIs and the people behind them. He currently works at Zapier, helping their partners integrate with its automation platform to empower their shared customers. He has always loved automation and data sharing, though it was originally cartography that got him hooked into the world of APIs:

“From geocoding to maps, I loved the idea of taking something that for generations had been difficult, and making it available to anyone.”

DuVander says that with APIs and people, anything is possible. Ironically though, people are both the best and worst thing about APIs.

“All of the hard things about APIs are due to the people, but without them, we’d have no reason to continue.”

In addition to being an experienced developer within API marketing, DuVander is also a veteran when it comes to Nordic APIs. This will be his sixth Nordic APIs event as a speaker, and his fourth trip to Stockholm which is one of his favourite European cities.

“There are a handful of API events now, which was not the case when I spoke at the first Nordic APIs. Despite more events now, the top tier among them still bring together the best concentration of API practitioners anywhere. If you work with APIs every day, you owe it to yourself to attend,” DuVander says.

At the event in October he expects to have deep, impactful conversations about the people and technical issues within making APIs.

“I’m impressed with how Nordic APIs gathers attendees from all around Europe, and speakers worldwide, and the Nordic APIs blog extends the energy of the events to the rest of the world and keeps it going all year long.”

Which future trends do you see emerging within the API industry?

I think we’ve just scratched the surface of “citizen coding.” But the future of non-programmers using APIs isn’t going to look like the programming of today, nor will it be a graphical code builder. Yet we’ll have anyone able to get their job done using a handful of tools that use APIs behind the scenes.

“APIs – Easier & More Complicated Than Ever”

August 15th, 2017

Patrick Poulin’s session.

Patrick Poulin moved to NYC 10 years ago to pursue a career working on the Internet. Soon after he was managing the retail vertical for a company building the first mobile websites for over 75 major brands. After a short stint in adtech, he became the API Evangelist for Getty Images.

“This is where I recognized the problem of a lack of proper testing for APIs, and that experience helped kick off the creation of API Fortress,” says Poulin.

Patrick Poulin started working with APIs because he likes to stand slightly ahead of the curve, he says. He began working with mobile web when that was just starting, then apps, then adtech, and now APIs.

“The best thing about APIs is the ability to make things work together. That is a huge step forward that people forget about. The biggest problem though, is the lack of standardization.”

In 2014, Poulin cofounded API Fortress, an automated API testing and monitoring platform for the entire lifecycle. He had realized that there was no platform in the market that allowed him, a non-developer, to write a comprehensive test without having to write code.

“I saw that there was a need for a tool to empower QAs and PMs, and to make the lives of developers easier,” Poulin explains.

Poulin will join Nordic APIs for the first time at the 2017 Platform Summit, where he expects to make some new friends, connections, and learn about some new advancements in the space.

“I like this year’s theme because it’s very front of mind for us. More and more customers of our customers are choosing the on-premises version for their own virtual private clouds.”

What will take APIs to the next level?

“Making them accessible to non-developers. A future trend, I believe, will be making APIs usable by non-developers with drag-and-drop tools. This will lead to a greater need for testing, but fortunately tools for that are improving as well.”

“APIs Can Still Be Daunting to Some”

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Articles By 2017 Platform Summit Speakers

Here is a list of great articles that all star 2017 PS speakers have graciously written for the blog:

• AUDREY NEVEU: WebHooks vs WebSub: Which Is Better For Real-Time Event Streaming? Attend her SESSION.
• KRISTOPHER SANDOVAL: 4 Mantras for Designing Scalable APIs. Attend his SESSION.
• CHRIS WOOD: An Introduction to APIs For the Uninitiated. Attend his SESSION.

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Writer: Elisabet Norrgård