WEB APIS, THE NEW LANGUAGE FRONTIER

All-in-one web API platformhttp://apispark.com

December 4, 2013

Jérôme LOUVELjlouvel@restlet.com

CEO

EVOLUTION OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

Part 1

TOP PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

Source: TIOBE Index

C is still the first language !

Assembly is still in the top 20 !

A TALE OF ABSTRACTION

Application languages Productivity, portability, business logic

Web API languages Web scale, high availability, multi-tenancy

System languages Native/OS code, very high performance

Assembly languages Lowest level language, tedious maintenance

Hardware

Java, JS, Dart, Groovy

HOP, APISpark, WebShell

C, C++, C#, Obj-C, Go

NASM, TASM

Intel, AMD, SPARC

WEB API LANGUAGESCURRENT STATE

• Can describe Web APIs– XML or JSON driven representations

– proper HTTP methods usage

– markup languages (XML, JSON, YAML, MarkDown)

• Can generate code– client SDKs

– server skeleton

WEB API LANGUAGESNEXT STAGE ?

• Let developers program the Web– through web APIs instead [Java/JS] APIs– natively speaking the HTTP semantics– not only the API contract, also the implementation !

• Web APIs can be local or remote– inherently component-based– ready for load-balancing, scaling, cross-region

• Cloud-ready implementations– multi-tenant execution– run on-top of IaaS– built-in persistence service (synchronized APIs life cycle)

…

Internal DSLJavaScript based HOP pioneer

RETHINKING WEB API DEVELOPMENT

Part 2

API EDITOR

• Let developers code at the API level– Visual editor– Command line editor

• Cloud ready– collaborative edition

• think Google Docs and GitHub style

– easy composition of multiple APIs• via import instructions• easy discovery mechanism (like Linux or Java package managers)

API COMPILER

Hardware

Assembly languages Generates CPU operations

Compilers translate higher-level languages

into lower-level languages

System languages Generates assembly code

Application languages Generates [JVM byte code]

Web API languages Generates [Java] code

API DEBUGGER

• Let developers debug API calls– HTTP centric, semantics and transport data

– pause, stop, continue, set breakpoints

– works like a [Java] debugger

• Works on both server and client sides– support both synchronous and asynchronous calls

– lot of room for innovation!

…

Interactive HTTP proxy

API RUNNING

• Let developers run APIs– similar to using web API frameworks on top of

application languages (eg. Restlet Framework for Java)

– similar to API deployment (developer environment)

• Special features– no separation between framework and actual

language for better productivity

– lot of room for innovation!

…

Node JS basedRestlet Framework based

API DOCUMENTATION

• Let developers document APIs– technical documentation easy to maintain

– tools similar to Javadocs to keep documentation close to the code

– still needs separate user guide and tutorials

• Currently mature on the API contracts– what about the implementation details?

API DEPLOYMENT

• Let developers deploy APIs– like Eclipse IDE deployment of Web packages (WAR) to remote

application servers– as simple as pressing a button– targets either staging or production environments

• Special features– built on top of IaaS– cross-region deployment as a key option

• for high-availability• for low latency (geo-DNS routing)

AN ILLUSTRATION WITH APISPARK

Part 3

STEP 1: CREATE ENTITY STORE

STEP 2: EXPORT WEB API

STEP 3: DEPLOY WEB API

STEP 4: MONITOR YOUR WEB API

CONCLUSION

Part 4

PAAS 2.0

• IaaS is a revolution– fully embraced web APIs– provides a disruptive new abstraction layer

• PaaS 1.0 is just an evolution– only simplifies the deployment aspects– same application languages, similar complexity/time/cost– slow adoption compared to IaaS stellar growth– adapts existing development practices to the Web

• Time for PaaS 2.0 !– fully embrace web APIs as a disruption factor– cross-region deployment, zero-downtime, low latency will become standard in

SLAs your web API can’t stop your partners– development costs and time to market can be reduced

A whole new web API game is starting !

BREAKING NEWS !

• Seed round recently announced– $2M raised

• to expand our Engineering team in France• to accelerate our Marketing efforts in the US

– Experimented board including• Bertrand Diard, co-founder of Talend, Los Altos• Matthieu Hug, CEO Fujitsu RunMyProcess, Paris• Reza Malekzadeth, VP Business of Cumulus, Los Altos

– Third co-founder• Stève Sfartz, VP Engineering (see talk tomorrow)

• APISpark Public Beta !– starting today at APIdays Paris– no more waiting list– looking forward to getting your feed-back!

http://apispark.com

KEEP IN TOUCH!

http://apispark.com

Twitter: @jlouvel

jlouvel@restlet.com

Source: Wired / June 2013