APIs are hard to talk about across large groups of people while ensuring everyone is on the same page. APIs don’t have much of a visual side to them, providing a tangible reference for everyone to use by default. This is where OpenAPI comes in, helping us “see” an API, and establish a human- and machine-readable document that we can produce and pass around, and use as a reference to what an API does. OpenAPI makes me feel like I have a handle on what an API does, in a way that I can actually have a conversation around it with other people–without it, things are much fuzzier.
Many folks associate OpenAPI with documentation, code generation, or some other tooling or service that uses the specification – putting their emphasis on the tangible thing, over the definition. While working on projects, I spend a lot of time educating folks about what OpenAPI is, what it is not, and how it can facilitate communication across teams and API stakeholders. While this work can be time-consuming, and a little frustrating sometimes, it is worth it. A little education and OpenAPI adoption can go a long way to moving projects along, because (almost) everyone involved is able to be actively involved in moving API operations forward. https://goo.gl/9gFLL2 #DataIntegration #ML
