We've been talking about the concept of an API Economy for a while now. Over the past few years we've seen most software products move away from individual installations, into the Cloud, providing a "software-as-a-service" model for the consumption of their features. When one starts refering to software as a service, APIs become indispensible.
The REST specification lays down guidelines to create a RESTful API. However, there are no rules. Developers tend to write APIs in their own styles. There are no guidelines/rules around documentation of these APIs. Furthermore, formal API specifications can serve as an input to client-side SDK generators. Changes to the API demand rewriting/refactoring of the SDKs.
The Swagger project was born with three goals: API development, API documentation and API interaction. Later rebranded as the OpenAPI Initiative, the project first formalized an API documentation style. This helped achieve the other two goals. A formal API documentation helps auto-generate a user interaction framework to aid users quickly try their APIs, thereby allowing an iterative model for API development. Formal API documentation also helps in generating client-side SDKs.
This session will introduce OpenAPI and also touch upon how it could be used with Spring Boot 2.
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