API Design Matters

Why API Design Matters... and Why "API Design Matters"

Welcome to API Design Matters.

In this substack, I explore API Design and Developer Experience matters large and small, topics around building and running API programs... that is, why API Design Matters.

I’ll focus on RESTful web services, but many of the concepts apply to other API styles like AsyncIO, GRPC, and GraphQL. Articles will pull from my 12 years experience designing RESTful APIs using OpenAPI, but include echos of designing traditional programming language interfaces and libraries over 30+ years of my career.

API Design is truly an art, and while ChatGPT can spit out basic APIs, there is still much to be said for well-crafted consistent APIs designed in a broader context, with the consumer and Developer Experience in mind.

A good (or great) Developer Experience (DX) is an important aspect of API design, and this substack will often discuss the interplay of API design and DX: how and why API Design matters to DX.

Intro

I’m David Biesack. I am Chief API Officer at Apiture. Apiture is a Software-as-as-Service provider of digital banking to hundreds of financial institutions across the US. There, I am responsible for API architecture and design and Apiture’s Developer Experience and Developer Portal.

Prior to joining Apiture in 2017, I worked at SAS in Cary NC for 28 years. For my last 5+ years at SAS, I ran the API Center of Excellence which managed SAS’ API standards and API review process , assisted teams with API design, and otherwise helped with SAS’ adoption of REST APIs. In my earlier positions at SAS, I designed and built a list library and object programming system for the SAS Command Language, was R&D Java Strategist as SAS adopted the Java platform starting in 1996, designed and implemented boatloads of Java APIs, did a stint in the Advanced Computing lab researching highly parallel multi-dimensional data servers and distributed programming languages, and built a few Scala libraries.

I will begin the API Design Matters substack with an extensive series on The Language of API Design. This five part series will focus on the API First process to complete learning projects with the OpenAPI 3 Specification—why API Design with OpenAPI matters.

Outro

Enough about me. I hope to hear from you - what topics of API Design are top of mind? How do you approach the design process? Let’s have a conversation.

You can also find me on mastodon.social/@DavidBiesack (no ɹǝʇʇᴉʍʇ, thank you).