We are doing a lot of stress testing on the technology, business, and politics of APIs, OpenAPI, collections, documentation, explorers, playgrounds, clients, SDKs, plugins, applications, and integrations over the last couple of weeks. In addition to several stories in this layer we were talking with Vincent Biret from Microsoft about the consumer-driven view of these layers, shifting the polarities on how we approach this conversation—-meaning why do producers deliver these things to why do consumers want these things. As we are playing with the API client layer, we find ourselves thinking about what appears to be the great unbundling of the API client.
From Postman to Bruno to Scalar, what is lost? What is gained? What can you use as inputs and what can you get as outputs? Who is the target persona for each of these tools, what are their incentives, and what work can they get done? There are so many interesting questions at each of these layers, but also spread across these layers. Once you start wearing your API producer hat you see things one way and when you put on your API consumer hat you see things another way. If you are selling your tools and services to the space you see things another way. What is the role of not just unbundling, but open-source unbundling? So unbundling of the business and technology. What happens with your inputs and outputs when you support only OpenAPI, or when you also support collections, or become an XKCD and create a new specification?
So. Many. Good. Ideas. Discussions.
