portal.apievangelist.comAPI Evangelist Portal

Twitter Github LinkedIn RSS This website is currently dormant! I am Kin Lane, the API Evangelist... This has been my domain where I studied the technology, business, and politics of APIs from 2010 until 2019. It was kind of a PHD into how much of the web, mobile, and connected device works, as APIs drive almost everything today. I worked with startups, small business, enterprise organizations, and government agencies to understand how they were putting APIs to work. Spending time in Silicon Valley, New York, Washington DC working for the White House, and in Europe working with banks, the European Commission, and others to understand the world of APIs. In 2019, I've decided to step away, and put my skills to work at F5 Networks as an API architect. While I thoroughly enjoyed doing API Evangelist, I was getting weary of the independent hustle, and I was in need of some change. At some point in the future I may come back to this work, but for now I've worked to clean up the site a little, and just leave up as a resource for others to learn from. I won't be publishing any new blog posts, or engaging with the community, but I'm happy to continue sharing my research and hard work, as it was my passion for some time. You can access everything I've written via the archives page , and I've recently added a Google Search page to make things easier to find my keyword and topics. You can also access my API lifecycle research spanning almost a hundred stops using the links below. Each area of the API lifecycle is its own repository with stories I've written in each area, curated links, and companies and tooling that I've discovered along the way. You may come across links that are broken, as things change often in the space, and startups come and go. I will work to clean up from time to time, but for now, it is what it is. I hope you find something of value here. Uptrends Uptrends is the ultimate monitoring tool to stay in control of the uptime, performance, and functionality of your websites, APIs, and servers. 3Scale 3scale makes it easy to open, secure, distribute, control and monetize APIs, that is built with performance, customer control and excellent time-to-value in mind. Latest From Blog on API Portal: Reviewing The Department Of Veterans Affairs New Developer Portal 28 Aug 2018 I wanted to take a moment and review t he Department Of Veterans Affairs (VA) new developer portal . Spending some time considering at how far they’ve come, what they published so far, and brainstorm on what the future might hold. Let me open by saying that I am working directly and indirectly with the VA on a variety of paid projects, but I’m not being paid to write about their API effort–that is something I’ve done since I worked there in 2013. I will craft a disclosure to this effect that I put at the bottom of each story I write about the VA, but I wanted to put out there in general, as I work through my thoughts on what is happening over at the VA. The VA Has Come A Long Way I wanted to open up this review with a nod towards how far the VA has come. There have been other publicly available APIs at the VA, as well as a variety of open data efforts, but the VA is clearly going all in on APIs with this wave. The temperature at VA in 2013 when it came to APIs was lukewarm at best. With the activity I’m seeing at the moment, I can tell that the temperature of the water has gone way up. Sure, the agency still has a long way to go, but from what I can tell, the leadership is committed to the agencies API journey–something I have not seen before. Developer.VA.Gov Sends The Right Signal It may not seem like much, but providing a public API portal at developer.va.gov sends a strong signal that the VA is seriously investing in their API effort. I see a lot of API programs, and companies who have a dedicated domain, or subdomain for their API operations are always more committed than people who make it just a subsection of their existing website, or existing as a help entry in a knowledge-base. It is important for federal agencies to have their own developer.[domain].gov portal that is actively maintained–which will be the next test for the VA’s resolve, keeping the portal active and growing. The General Look And Feel Of The Portal I like the minimalist look of the VA developer portal. It is simple. Easy on the eyes. I feel like the site is currently under development” is unnecessary, because this should never cease to be. I like the an official website of the United States government”, it is clean, and official looking. I’m happy to see the Get help from Veterans Crisis Line”, and is something that should be on any page with services, data, or content for veterans. I like the flexible messaging area (FMA), where it says Put VA Data to Work”. I’d like to see this section become an evolving FMA, with a wealth of messages rolling through it, educating the ecosystem about what is happening across the VA developer platform at any given moment. Getting Started And Learning More The learn more about VA APIs off the FMA area on home page drops me into benefits API overview, which happens to be the first category of APIs on the documentation page. I recommend isolating this to its own getting started” page, which provides an overview of how to get started across all APIs. Providing background on the VA developer program, as well as the other building blocks of getting started with APIs, like requesting access, studying the API documentation, and the path to production for any application you are developing. The getting started for the VA developer portal should be a first class citizen, with its own page, and a logical presentation of exactly the building blocks developers will need to get started–then they can move onto documentation across all the API categories. There Are Valuable APIs Available Once you do actually begin looking at the API documentation available within the VA developer portal, you realize that there are truly valuable APIs available in there. Don’t get me wrong, the Arlington National Cemetery API is important, which has been the only publicly available API from the VA for several years, but when I think about VA APIs, I’m looking for resources that make a meaningful and significant impact on a vets life today: Benefits Intake - Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) document uploads. Appeals Status - Enables approved organizations to submit benefits-related PDFs and access information on a Veteran’s behalf. Facilities API - Use the VA Facility API to find relevant information about a specific VA facility. For each VA facility, you’ll find contact information, location, hours of operation and available services. Veterans Health API - [There is no concise description for this API, and what is there needs some serious taming, and pulling out as part of the portal.] Veteran Verification - We are working to give Veterans control of their information – their service history, Veteran status, discharge information, and more – and letting them control who sees it. One minor thing, but will significantly contribute to the storytelling around VA APIs, is the consistent naming of APIs. Notice that only two of them have API in the title. I’m really not advocating for API to be in the title or not in the title. I am really advocating for consistency in naming, so that storytelling around them flows better. I lean towards using API in each title, just so that their titles in the documentation, OpenAPI contract behind, and everywhere these APIs travel are consistent, meaningful, and explain what is available. I like the organizing of APIs into the three categories of benefits, facilities, and health. I’d say veteran verification is a little out of place. Maybe have a veteran category, and it is the first entry? IDK. I’m thinking there needs to be a little planning for the future, and what constitutes a category, and some guidance on how things are defined, broken down, and...