by David I | Jun 7, 2017 | Developer News, Developer Programs News, DevRelate |
In today’s interconnected world, companies in all industries need to publish APIs and cultivate a developer community to access and use them. To be competitive today, attracting and supporting developers is essential. The key to cultivating a vibrant developer community that uses your APIs and supports your platform is a good developer relations program. “Developer Programs and APIs in the News” is a series of news items from developer programs around the world.
Developer Programs and APIs in the News
Apple – June 6, 2017 – Updated App Store Review Guidelines Now Available – “The App Store Review Guidelines have been updated. We review all apps submitted to the App Store in an effort to determine whether they are reliable, perform as expected, and are free of offensive material. As you plan and develop your app, make sure to use these updated guidelines.”
Apple – June 5, 2017 – See What’s Next for Xcode, macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS – “The new beta of Xcode 9 is now available, and includes Swift 4 and SDKs used to build apps with the latest innovations and powerful capabilities in macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS.”
Apple – June 5, 2017 – Introducing ARKit – “iOS 11 introduces ARKit, a new framework that allows you to easily create unparalleled augmented reality experiences for iPhone and iPad. By blending digital objects and information with the environment around you, ARKit takes apps beyond the screen, freeing them to interact with the real world in entirely new ways.”
Apple – June 5, 2017 – Introducing Core ML framework – “Integrate machine learning models into your app. Core ML is the foundation for domain-specific frameworks and functionality. Core ML supports Vision for image analysis, Foundation for natural language processing, and GameplayKit for evaluating learned decision trees. Core ML itself builds on top of low-level primitives like Accelerate and BNNS, as well as Metal Performance Shaders.”
Rice University – June 1, 2017 – Rice U. scientists slash computations for deep learning – “Rice University computer scientists have adapted a widely used technique for rapid data lookup (Hashing) to slash the amount of computation — and thus energy and time — required for deep learning, a computationally intense form of machine learning. Hashing can eliminate more than 95 percent of computations.”
Google – June 1, 2017 – 2017 Android Security Rewards – “We’re constantly working to improve the Android Security Rewards program and today we’re making a few changes to all vulnerability reports filed after June 1, 2017. Because every Android release includes more security protections and no researcher has claimed the top reward for an exploit chains in 2 years, we’re excited to increase our top-line payouts for these exploits.”
Microsoft – June 1, 2017 – Microsoft’s high-performance, open source, deep learning toolkit VErsion 2.0 is now generally available – “Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit version 2.0 is now in full release with general availability. Cognitive Toolkit enables enterprise-ready, production-grade AI by allowing users to create, train, and evaluate their own neural networks that can then scale efficiently across multiple GPUs and multiple machines on massive data sets.”
Apple – June 1, 2017 – Developer Earnings from the App Store Top $70 Billion – “Apple today announced that its global developer community has earned over $70 billion since the App Store launched in 2008. The App Store is home to the most innovative apps in the world and in the past 12 months alone, downloads have grown over 70 percent.”
Kleiner Perkins – May 31, 2017 – Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends 2017 Report – “Global Internet Trends = Solid User Growth… Slowing SmartPhone Growth. Online Advertising (+ Commerce) = Increasingly Measurable + Actionable. Interactive Games = Motherlode of Tech Product Innovation + Modern Learning. Media = Distribution Disruption @ Torrid Pace. The Cloud = Accelerating Change Across Enterprises.”
Cisco, IBM – May 31, 2017 – Cisco and IBM Join Forces to Tackle Cybercrime – “Cisco and IBM Security today announced they are working together to address the growing global threat of cybercrime. In a new collaboration, Cisco and IBM Security will work closely together across products, services and threat intelligence for the benefit of customers. Cisco® security solutions will integrate with IBM’s QRadar to protect organizations across networks, endpoints and cloud.”
nodejs.org – May 30, 2017 – Node v8.0.0 – “The next major release of Node.js brings a range of significant changes and additions.” Includes: npm v5.0.0, JavaScript runtime V8 5.8, asynch hooks, WHATWG URL parser, Buffer changes, Improved support for Promises and more.
Oracle – May 30, 2017 – Proposed schedule change for JDK 9 – “As you probably know by now, the JCP Executive Committee (EC) recently voted not to approve JSR 376, the Java Platform Module System, for the next stage of the process. This vote does not mean that JSR 376 is dead, nor that Jigsaw has been rejected. It only means that the EC raised a number of concerns that it wanted the JSR 376 Expert Group (EG) to address…To be specific, I propose that we move the GA date out by eight weeks, from 27 July to 21 September.”
Red Hat, Codenvy – May 25, 2017 – Red Hat to Acquire Codenvy, Provider of Agile and Cloud-Native Development Tools – “Red Hat, Inc. announces that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Codenvy, provider of cloud-native development tools that enable developers to more easily create modern container-based and cloud-native applications. By adding Codenvy to its existing portfolio of developer tools and application platforms, including Red Hat JBoss Middleware and Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat continues its efforts to provide solutions that enable developers to create applications for hybrid cloud environments.”
Send me your Developer Programs News!
If you have news about your Developer Relations Program, send me an email about the news.
David Intersimone “David I”
Vice President of Developer Communities
Evans Data Corporation
davidi@evansdata.com
Blog: https://www.devrelate.com/blog/
Skype: davidi99
Twitter: @davidi99
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidi99/
by David I | Jan 9, 2017 | APIs, Developer Outreach, Developer Relations, Programming, Tools |
In marketing our developer focused products, frameworks and services, we often create screen shots, sometimes called the “hero” shot, that provides high level visualizations of the product, frameworks and services and what developers can potentially build. When I visit developer relations program sites, I find lists of SDKs, APIs, tutorials, demos, documentation, videos, white papers, etc. What I seldom find are complete MVP (minimally viable product) or DevRel Hero App template projects for developers.
It’s great to see all of the sample projects for each API, these are great for learning the specific calls, parameters and return results. In the early days of Java Enterprise Edition (when it was still part of Sun Microsystems), you could find the Java Pet Store project. The Petstore project gave you the complete solution for an AJAX enabled web application. You could load the project and experiment with you. You could use it as a starting point for your own Java Enterprise web applications. Java Petstore was part of Sun’s BluePrints program: “The Java BluePrints Program program helps developers create robust, scalable, and portable applications by providing guidelines, patterns, and code that illustrate best practices on how to build end-to-end applications using Java technology.”
Examples of DevRel Hero App Template Projects
Here are a few examples of template and complete sample applications provided by developer relations programs. You can also search on your favorite developer platform or service sites and look for application templates, sample projects, and showcase applications.
Microsoft Visual Studio Templates for Web Projects – “Visual Studio includes project templates to help you get started when you create a web project. You can create web application projects or web site projects. By considering the most appropriate project type before you begin, you can save time when you create, test, and deploy the web project.”
DNN Software DNN (formerly known as DotNetNuke) : CMS open source platform for .NET – “DNN Platform is a free, open source .NET CMS and the foundation of DNN’s Evoq product offerings. Over 750,000 organizations worldwide have built websites powered by DNN Platform.”
Google Android XYZTouristAttractions Sample – “This sample aims to be as close to a real world example of a mobile and Wear app combination as possible. It has a more refined design and also provides a practical example of how a mobile app would interact and communicate with its wear counterpart.”
Oracle Jet WorkBetter App – “WorkBetter is a complete sample app showcasing the capabilities of JET for building web applications. WorkBetter has been designed for use as a web application in browsers from a mobile phone up to desktop. WorkBetter demonstrates web UI patterns and best practices, including Routing, ojModule, and data resource interactions.”
Facebook F8 2016 Developer Conference App – this is “the source code of the official F8 app of 2016, powered by React Native and other Facebook open source projects”. It includes sub-projects for iOS and Android apps that were available in the Apple AppStore and Google Play. “We’ve created a series of tutorials at makeitopen.com that explain how we built the app, and that dive into how we used React Native, Redux, Relay, GraphQL, and more.”
Do you have DevRel Hero App Template Projects?
If you have Hero App template projects as part of your developer relations project that highlight complete solutions, please email me.
David Intersimone “David I”
Vice President of Developer Communities
Evans Data Corporation
davidi@evansdata.com
Blog: https://www.devrelate.com/blog/
Skype: davidi99
Twitter: @davidi99
by David I | Nov 11, 2016 | APIs, Developer Outreach, Developer Relations |
If your developer APIs support web services based on REST and JSON then you can reach out to just about every developer on the planet Earth (21 million of them and counting). The acronym REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer. JSON is JavaScript Object Notation. REST and JSON are the defacto standard for HTTP/HTTPS based web services APIs. RESTful Web Services are provided in just about all of the Internet based developer program APIs. REST was originally defined in Roy Thomas Fielding’s UC Irvine Doctoral Dissertation titled “Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures“. Fielding is now a Senior Principal Scientist at Adobe Systems in Orange County California.
Do you use REST and JSON in your APIs?
When I do an assessment of a developer relations program one of the first things I look at are the SDKs, APIs and programming languages that are supported. Most developer programs with REST and JSON web service APIs list support for popular programming languages including Java, C#, C, C++, Python, JavaScript, Ruby and PHP. The VISA Developer Center, for example, has a “Getting Started Guide” that lets you choose to view sample source code for Java, Python, Node.Js, Ruby, C# and PHP right in place inside the guide. Developers can copy and paste the code snippets into their programs.
Besides the languages I just listed, there are many other programming languages that also support REST and JSON web services. Why would you intentionally block out developer program members that use other programming languages and frameworks? Here are some programming languages (not an exhaustive list) that have libraries that support REST and JSON based web services. I have added links to documentation, blog posts, tutorials and articles showing how to create client applications that call REST APIs.
If I have not listed your favorite programming language and the support for REST and JSON based API calls, please send me an email with the language and a URL to an article or documentation page with an example.
Reach out to Developers without having to Document your APIs for every language
If you don’t want to have to support every programming language and have examples, you can still document your Web Services REST endpoints and JSON parameters and return values and then point developers to programming language REST and JSON how to sites. I want to hear from developer program professionals that are supporting additional programming languages for your APIs.
David Intersimone “David I”
Vice President of Developer Communities
Evans Data Corporation
davidi@evansdata.com
Blog: https://www.devrelate.com/blog/
Skype: davidi99
Twitter: @davidi99
by David I | Oct 5, 2016 | Developer Relations, Programming, Programming Languages |
Depending on the products and services your company provides that are supported by your developer relations program, you will find a large number (or a short list) of programming language you should consider. Of course, you can’t always support every programming language that developers might want to use. Each language choose to support will come with costs including: API interfaces and documentation, source code examples, articles and videos to create, developer tools to test with, developer support, training and more. At the same time, supporting more languages can also extend the developer reach for your company resulting in increased revenue and reputation.
So, how do you decide which programming languages to support? You can look inside your own company, review the Evans Data developer surveys, check out programming language popularity sites, see what developer positions are listed on job boards, look at the programming language popularity on Stack Overflow, searching GitHub projects, factor in the leading platforms and technologies, search for what the top computer science and software engineering schools are teaching and read what tech industry luminaries, bloggers and press write about. If that isn’t enough sources for guidance, you can also use dart and Ouija boards, magic 8-ball and D&D dice (just kidding).
Programming Language(s) Popularity
Here are a few places where you can find information about popular programming languages and programming language rankings.
You Can Support any Programming Language if …
A great benefit of using industry standards for APIs, REST/JSON for example, is that just about every programming language in use today can make REST calls and pass parameters and receive results using JSON. If you are using SOAP, CORBA or some other RPC (probably for legacy systems), you should defintely add support for REST and JSON. Some companies are also exploring the use of Apache Thrift and GraphQL for some of their service APIs. If you interested in microservices for your developer platforms, check out this article “Microservice Showdown – REST vs SOAP vs Apache Thrift (And Why It Matters)“. Also check out this recent article about GitHub adding a GraphQL API “Just Because Github Has a GraphQL API Doesn’t Mean You Should Too“.
Let me know what Programming Language(s) your developer program supports
What programming languages do you support for your developer program and platform? Send me an email!
David I.
davidi@evansdata.com
Twitter: @davidi99
