If your API supports REST and JSON then you can Reach out to Every Developer
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.
- JavaScript – http://geoserver.geo-solutions.it/edu/en/rest/js_rest_examples.html
- Java – https://vaadin.com/blog/-/blogs/consuming-rest-services-from-java-applications
- Python – https://developer.atlassian.com/fecrudev/integration-tutorials/writing-a-rest-client-in-python
- C++ – https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj950082.aspx
- C – https://dzone.com/articles/rest-api-c-client-picloud
- C# – https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh674188.aspx
- Ruby – http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Table_API_Ruby_Examples#gsc.tab=0
- PHP – http://blog.ijasoneverett.com/2013/02/rest-api-a-simple-php-tutorial/
- Matlab – https://www.mathworks.com/help/mps/restful-api-and-json.html
- Visual Basic .NET – https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/martinkearn/2015/01/05/introduction-to-rest-and-net-web-api/
- Objective-C – http://www.creativepulse.gr/en/blog/2014/restful-api-requests-using-objective-c-works-on-ios-and-mac
- Swift – https://thatthinginswift.com/write-your-own-api-clients-swift/
- Go – http://thenewstack.io/make-a-restful-json-api-go/
- Delphi/Object Pascal – http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Seattle/en/Tutorial:_Using_the_REST_Client_Library_to_Access_REST-based_Web_Services
- Groovy – https://sites.google.com/a/athaydes.com/renato-athaydes/code/groovy—rest-client-without-using-libraries
- Haskell – https://www.schoolofhaskell.com/school/to-infinity-and-beyond/competition-winners/interfacing-with-restful-json-apis
- Dart – https://webdev.dartlang.org/articles/get-data/json-web-service
- F# – http://fsharp.github.io/FSharp.Data/library/Http.html
- Scala – http://alvinalexander.com/scala/scala-rest-client-apache-httpclient-restful-clients
- Erlang – http://no-fucking-idea.com/blog/2013/01/22/making-request-to-rest-resources-in-erlang/
- R – https://technistas.com/2012/06/11/using-rest-apis-from-r/
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
