I was hanging out with my friend Mike Amundsen (@mamund) in Colorado last month and we ended up discussing folks uncertainty with APIs. You see, many folks that he has been talking to were extremely nervous about all the unknowns in the world of APIs, and were looking for more direction regarding what they should be doing (or not doing). Not all people thrive in a world of unknown unknowns, and not even in a world of known unknowns. Many just want a world of known knowns. This is something that makes the API landscape a very scary thing to some folk, and world where they will not thrive and be successful unless we can all begin to find a way to help them understand that this is all a journey.
I love figuring all of this API stuff out, and I know Mike does too. We like thinking about the lofty concepts, as well as figuring out how to piece all the technical elements together in ways that work in a variety of business sectors. Many folks we are pushing APIs on aren’t like us, and just want to be told what to do. They just want the technology solution to their problem. A template. A working blueprint. It freaks them out to have so many options, possibilities, patterns, and directions they take things. I feel like we are setting folks up for failure when we talk them into embarking on an API journey without the proper training, equipment, support, and guidance.
I think about the last seven years doing this, and how much I’ve learned. Realizing this makes me want to keep doing APIs, just so I can keep learning new things. I thought I understood REST when I started. I didn’t. I thought I understand the web when I started, I didn’t (still don’t). I was missing a lot of the basics, and no matter what folks told me, or how precise their language was, I still needed to bang my head on something over and over before I got it. I was missing a significant amount of why hypermedia can be a good approach without truly understanding content negotiation, and link relations. Realizing how much I still need to explore and learn has only emboldened me on my journey, but I’m not convinced this will be the case with everyone. We are wrong to assume everyone is like us.
As technologists and autodidacts we often overestimate our own ability, as well as what others are capable of. We realize APIs are not a destination, but a journey. However, we suck at explaining this to others. We are horrible at understanding all of the stepping stones that got us here, and recreating them for others. I put myself into this group. I think about this stuff full time, and I still regularly stumble when it comes to on-boarding folks with what API are, and properly helping them in their journey. I still do not have a proper set of on-boarding lessons for folks, beyond my API 101 stuff. I talk a lot of talk about the API life cycle, the API economy, and all the business and politics of APIs, but I still can’t point folks to where the yellow brick road is. We have to get better at this if we expect folks to ever catch up.
This is one reason I feel Zapier, and other iPaaS providers are so important. We should be helping people understand APIs and integration in context of the problems they are trying to solve, not in terms of REST, SDKs, or any of the other technical jargon we spew. With Zapier, folks can play with Zaps (recipes) that deliver meaningful API integration that actually solve a problem in their world. They can play with what is possible, without learning all the technical pieces first. They can evolve in their business world, while also progressing on their API journey. IDK. I’m just trying to find ways to help folks better understand what APIs are. I’ll never make everything known to them, but I’m hoping that I can help make folks a little less nervous about the known unknowns, and who knows maybe some day they’ll feel brave enough, and confident in their API awareness that they’ll be able to operate in a world of the unknown unknowns, and settle in on the perpetual journey that are APIs.
