Drop the requirement of the API review?

[hlgr360]

It is not being followed for over a year now. A mandatory rule being systematically ignored without consequences is worse than having no rule at all. Asking for comments.

[DonMartin76]

I am for dropping it, and making it optional, but recommended. As you say, it's not being followed anyway. One could speculate on why it's not being followed.

[hlgr360]

I would love to know why?! I had assumed that trying to design a better API by soliciting input and review would be something inherently meaningful and valuable to engineers. Especially given that API design is not something which comes naturally (especially outside-in design) to a software developer. At least I learned a ton by folks with a product focus challenging my api(s).

[DonMartin76]

My guesses go into the direction of "argh, another process, another thing which will take a lot of my precioussss time." Which I can relate to, even though the API design is something that should be done thoroughly.

[chludwig-haufe]

I would still like to see discussions about the way our APIs are designed. The API guidelines document what we think is best practice, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We need to see the guidelines applied, understand why developers want to deviate from the guidelines, ideally also get the API consumers' feedback once the APIs are in production for some time. Only then we can learn and improve...

[david-espinosa]

In Umantis, we are applying the Haufe Style Guidelines when implementing our API’s. Certainly we still don’t have any centralized government similar to the Paypal’s centralized department that we saw in last workshop in Barcelona, but we are planning to do something similar soon. As a side note, let me add that we are on the way to add the Haufe Style Guideline embedded into our API specs app (Apiary), in order to visualize quickly any misalignment. This way the developer will have some kind of compilation error when defining an API that doesn’t respect some of the principles of the style guide.

[Kodrafo]

I see the API design process as an iterative and team oriented process. As a rule a new API must follow the Api style guide or there is a well-founded execption. Because it is a highly iterative process it is not easy to find a good time for a "official" review. I like to talk with the team and other colleagues about my design thoughts. But I don't see the need anymore for an official reviwe. Therefore I tend to the opinion of Martin. Drop the mandatory review. Recommend to review the Api with your team and colleagues. Partial reviews also make sense.