API World: 4 API Development Tips To Drive Business Impact – StartupNews.fyi

SANTA CLARA — APIs are one of the most powerful tools for driving business innovation, but without a coherent API strategyorganizations risk fragmented systems, slower time-to-market and missed opportunities for scalability and collaboration.

These were some of the lessons the Ambassador team took away from API World 2024held last month in Santa Clara, Calif.

A strong API strategy not only ensures technical agility but also aligns with business goals, driving efficiency, enhancing customer experiences and creating a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving tech landscape. However, 46% of technology leaders report that they need stronger alignment between IT and line-of-business on how to report and track API success, as described in Axway’s 2024 API maturity report,

While many aspects of API technology remain consistent — such as the challenges that people and organizations face — other aspects have evolved alongside innovations that drive more automation, better security, faster delivery and easier collaboration.

Following are four lessons we took away from API World about how improving your API development process can lead to new results for your team and help improve the business’ bottom line.

1. Protect Your Inner Developer Loop

In the realm of API development, a seamless workflow is paramount. Safeguarding your team’s inner developer loop is key for reducing interruptions and context shifts to maximize your coding efficiency. According to McKinsey, technology leaders should aim to keep developers in high-concentration “inner loop” development activities (build, code, test) 70% of the time, leaving 30% for the high collaboration “outer loop” activities (deploy, verify, release). By integrating debugging and testing directly into your integrated development environment (IDE), you can sidestep the cumbersome back-and-forth that often hinders development. This way, you can maintain your focus on coding without the disruption of juggling multiple tools and environments.

A major benefit of a protected inner developer loop is catching errors earlier through unit testing throughout the coding process. By running unit tests as they code, developers are better poised to identify and fix issues right away. This not only saves time but also ensures that the codebase remains more robust and error-free throughout the development life cycle.

innovations in API development technology are further empowering developers with the ability to conduct more advanced, production-like testing locally. Through integrated access to a hosted production-like test environment, developers can take their unit testing further than ever before while staying in the “inner loop.” This advancement reduces departmental friction and increases delivery speed and quality. The ability to foster an instant feedback loop is invaluable for iterative development, and helps leaders make informed decisions on the fly.

An instant testing environment that is part of a composable development solution can also improve collaboration, increasing the time spent on higher-value activities like coding and testing. By providing a space where individuals can more effectively test and validate their work, you can create a more cohesive team. This approach can help speed up development and ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals.

Implementing these strategies and tools can significantly streamline your API development process in ways that developers will be motivated to adopt. From more efficient coding and friction-free testing to robust error detection and more seamless collaboration, protecting your developers’ ability to stay focused is key to driving innovation and business value. By improving this important part of the development process, you can make API development faster, cheaper and better for your bottom line.

2. Use Standards That Work and Let AI Help

In the whirlwind of the digital age, we’re all racing to innovate and outpace the rest.

Speaking of rest, it’s worth noting that RESTful APIs remain the industry standard, and they’re working. REST is the dominant standard used by 85% of API developers, and it shows how to create well-defined, easy-to-understand and manageable APIs. By its side, the popular go programming The language stands as a stalwart ally in the quest to build APIs of strength and efficiency. Together, they promise to speed development and smooth collaboration between different teams and stakeholders. This is all in the name of scalable and high-performance APIs.

Let’s not forget the game-changer that is AI. AI-powered tools are changing how your developer and platform teams work by instantly generating specs and code, automating repetitive tasks and even suggesting improvements. This AI-assisted approach not only saves development time but also elevates the quality and consistency of delivery and, ultimately, the pace of innovation.

AI is driving a new wave of API proliferation, as APIs are typically needed to realize AI’s benefits. As Travis Gosselinsenior engineer at SPS Commercesaid in an interview at API World,

“A critical consideration for technology leaders today is to establish how AI will interact with APIs rather than rushing into implementation. “By strategically integrating AI into the API development process, businesses can unlock new levels of efficiency and innovation.”

The best thing you can do is figure out how to safely and intentionally incorporate AI into your API strategy to automate your developers’ manual tasks … or risk falling behind.

3. Drive Business Value With Each API (and Prove It With Data)

APIs have become a key part of modern business strategy and are often the unsung heroes of reducing costs, automating processes and harmonizing systems to cut through operational complexities.

According to Stephen Fishman, boomi field CTO and one of the authors of “Unbundling the Enterprise,” a technology strategy that leverages API development enables companies to gain optionality, which is a hugely significant advantage in a volatile business climate. This flexibility allows businesses to pivot quickly and capitalize on new opportunities as they arise, he said in an interview at API World,

The result? Streamlined workflows, fewer errors and significant savings (music to a CTO’s ear). This isn’t just about saving money; it’s about getting ahead of the game and bringing your innovations to market faster than the competition.

Proving the business value of APIs requires tracking data and measuring their impact. However, data access and API discoverability are still a huge pain point for many tech teams. Hasura product manager Rahul Agarwal noted in another interview,

“Many enterprises have a huge sprawl of data sources out there on their APIs in their ecosystem. Many leaders are still grappling with how to share access and report on that data across teams.”

Data that measures API usage, revenue from API-enabled services and operational cost savings provide concrete evidence of the benefits of your APIs. By continuously monitoring these metrics and sharing them widely, businesses can make data-driven decisions to improve their API strategy. This approach ensures that each API not only drives business value but also contributes to the organization’s overall success and growth.

4. Testing: Shift Left, Test Right

The strategic importance of comprehensive API testing cannot be overstated. Embedding robust testing practices early and often within the development life cycle, a concept known as ,shift left” ensures that APIs are not only functional but also reliable and resilient. Improving testing within the development process makes it easier for developers to debug and catch problems early on, which leads to a more efficient and productive workflow.

One of the main benefits of moving left is that you can use real-world data and test cases to fully check API functionality. By using tools that work well with IDEs, developers stay working in the same place. This not only improves the quality of the code but also builds confidence in the reliability of the APIs, driving better business outcomes.

Moreover, “testing right” is about running tests in a dedicated production-like environment. This is key to catching issues that only appear in real-world situations. Simulating production conditions can uncover hidden bugs, performance bottlenecks and security vulnerabilities that might otherwise go unnoticed. This way, the APIs are ready to be used and can handle the needs of real users after going through these. testing environments,

By shifting left and testing right, developers can achieve a quicker time to market, greater quality, fewer bugs and an improved developer experience overall — meaning dev teams make it to production faster, and fewer developers are asking what’s causing the slow down. Tools like Blackbird already have this philosophy in place to meet testing needs.

Understand Devs, Profit More

In the end, our learnings from API World extend far beyond the words of a few wise technology leaders. It’s important for the world’s CIOs, CTOs and VPs to sometimes dig down deep into the nitty gritty as well; it impacts your time to market and the health of your developer team. Using these tips about maintaining inner dev loops, proper tools, testing strategies and data to prove business value will help your team create better-quality APIs in the long run.

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