Github Can Be More Than Code

by on 05/26/2013

I have been using Github to manage my code for a couple years now, but in the last year I'm using Github more often for a variety of projects that don't always have code involved--examples ranging from hosting slide decks for my talks to repositories for my API research projects. In the last couple months I've noticed I'm not the only one using Github to organize projects, check out of a few of these examples: White House Open Data Project - Using Github to publish and solicit participation around the open data policy for all federal agencies Hackathon Guide - How to throw a hackathon guide, complete with an event website template that runs as Github page Innovators Patent Agreement - A new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers, put forth by Twitter. Germany for Laws - A repository containing all German federal laws and regulations in Markdown format Github lends itself to managing markup and markdown documents in a very collaborative way, allowing for tracking issues and revisions along the way. There is something about the open source process that introduces transparency and visibility into the document creation and management process.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, Federal Government, GitHub, Hackathons, Laws, Legislation, Patents

Quick Demonstration Showing The Benefits of The White House Digital Strategy

by on 05/25/2013

I wanted to share a quick visualization of the beneifts of Barack Obama's Presidential directive that every Federal Government agency should have an API, following Executive Order 13571, and part of the Whitehouse CIO's strategy, entitled "Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People" and the potential of the recent Open Data Executive Order and accompanying Open Data Policy. Each federal agency should have three things available online at their domain: agency. gov/digitalstrategy/ agency. gov/data agency. gov/developers/ Those are three pretty important signals in the API space.  This represents each agencies technology roadmap, data and developer resources. Which can be some pretty interesting signals for the overall health of a federal agency. To demonstrate, let's look at the Department of Energy. Let's go to:  http://energy. gov/digitalstrategy   Next:  http://energy. gov/data/ Then:  http://energy. gov/data/ After the Department of Energy, let's take a look at another agency, like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Let's go to:  http://irs. gov/digitalstrategy Next:  http://irs.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, Digital Strategy, Energy, Federal Government, IRS

IRS Needs To Use White House Open Data Policy For Guidance

by on 05/25/2013

I'm reading IRS: Turn Over a New Leaf, Open Up Data, from the Open Knowledge Foundation blog. I'll let you read it in its entirety, but these are the points that are sticking with me: One of Mr. Werfel’s first actions on the job should be the immediate implementation of the groundbreaking Presidential Executive Order and Open Data policy, released last week, that requires data captured and generated by the government be made available in open, machine-readable formats. Doing so will make the IRS a beacon to other agencies in how to use open data to screen any wrongdoing and strengthen law enforcement. By sharing readily available IRS data on tax-exempt organizations, encouraging Congress to pass a budget proposal that mandates release of all tax-exempt returns in a machine-readable format, and increasing the transparency of its own processes, the agency can begin to turn the page on this scandal and help rebuild trust and partnership between government and its citizens. Making IRS data open won’t solve every problem; the recent scandal has proven that the IRS must be more transparent about both the information it collects, but also how it manages that information.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, Federal Government, IRS, Open Data

Dropbox As Your Apps Default File System

by on 05/24/2013

Cloud storage of documents is becoming commonplace. Individuals, companies, government and non-government organizations have increasingly seen the potential of storing files in the cloud using services like Amazon S3, Dropbox and Box. As a web or mobile application developer, it is becoming more common to provide integration, syncing or even direct usage of popular cloud storage services like Dropbox as the application's storage system. This last week I started playing with Dave Winer's (@davewiner) simple idea outliner, notepad, todo list and project organizer--Fargo. What caught my attention is Dave's use of Dropbox as the central storage for the app. It reminds me of another application I use called Prose. io, which uses Github as the central storage system for the app. I really dig this approach to delivering, dead-simple, meaningful apps like Fargo, that don't re-invent the wheel and focus on delivering value on top of the existing tools and platforms we already use.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, Dave Winer, Dropbox, Fargo

DataSift's Open Source World

by on 05/24/2013

I'm increasingly finding a company's approach to using Github, a vital signal of the health of a company, their team, and the products and services they are delivering. An example of this is with social data platform, DataSift's new open source area. DataSift has thrown up a Github page which re-enforces the company's commitment to consuming and producing open source software, as well as a list of important, Github driven signals: Latest Updates - The latest repository updates acorss all of DataSift's repositories API Client Libraries - Java, Python, Ruby, PHP and other client libraries for the DataSift API Public Github Repos - Other tools and utilities that are avaiable via DataSift Github repositories Job Vacancies - A listing of current job openings at DataSift I think DataSift approach is a very meaningful demonstration in the potential of being "open".  As a company, DataSift provides access to valuable social signals, that any company can access via their interface and API, allowing them to develop insight and intelligence. If you look closely at their approach to deploying their Github hosted, open source site, it provides four very critical signals.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, Client Libraries, DataSift, GitHub, Open source, Social

Salesforce Adds Sandbox Templates

by on 05/24/2013

Salesforce is doing some pretty interesting stuff with the sandbox environment for DeveloperForce. Using the DeveloperForce sandbox you can create copies of your data, allowing you to develop, test or train against, not just a sandbox, but a relevant and meaningful copy of your company's data. The Force. com sandbox has always allowed you to create a separate copy of your data, but now they let you create sandbox templates, allowing you to create specific data sets that you can reuse in different ways. Seeing this feature coming out of Salesforce has prompted me to take a closer look at their approach to the DeveloperForce sandbox environment. I'm sure there are other features and approaches to sandboxing we can learn from the API pioneer. This reminds me of the story I wrote about UC Berkeley's desire for An API That Scrubs Personally Identifiable Information From Other APIs.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, Development, SalesForce, Sandbox

An Open Source Code Catalog for your API

by on 05/24/2013

I'm working through the wave of API innovation coming out of our Federal Government recently. During normal days at API Evangelist, I'm pulling private sector API usage examples and crafting them into stories to help the Federal Government execute on their API own strategies. Today, I'd like to showcase something the Federal Government is doing, in hopes that more companies in the private API sector will emulate as part of their API strategies. The GSA's Digital Services Innovation Center has launched the Mobile Code Catalog, an open source catalog of web and native applications that government agencies can use to jump-start their projects. Think application showcase, but all the applications are open source and allow for your API developers to download, fork and re-use code. The idea of a code catalog is pretty interesting, and I see it as an evolution of several API building blocks I talk about--code samples, SDKs, starter kits and application showcase all rolled into one. Imagine if your API consumers can come into your developer area and not just find code samples, they can find complete applications that they can download, reverse-engineer and put to use.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, Federal Government, GitHub, GSA, Open source

Multi-Tenancy with WSO2 API Manager

by on 05/24/2013

I just had a demo of some of the new features in the WSO2 API Manager. Since WSO2 is one of my partners, I have a regular call with them to discuss the space and I often get demos of their new products and features. Today's topic was multi-tenacy in their API Management platform, meaning you can easily deploy multiple API portals using the platform. Not every company will need more than one API portal, but for some companies that are further along, it provides a pretty sophisticated way to engage with API consumers. When it comes to slicing and dicing your APIs, we usually segment our API resources by service level, apps and users. WSO2 introduces a fourth layer--by the domain. So now you can group API resources under domains, crafting different "API storefronts" for your consumers. I'm still thinking through all of the opportunities with API management multi-tenancy, but at first thought, it will help me counteract many of the questions I get around a company's concern that APIs have to be public. Most companies have learned about APIs from the popularity of public APIs, so I spend a lot of time explaining the opportunities for internal or partner APis.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, API Management, portal, WSO2

Ember, Angular, Backbone, Single Page Applications and APIs

by on 05/23/2013

I was looking through Steve Willmott's slide deck from his talk at GlueCon this week, called The API- & App-ification of the Web. He talks about the evolution towards Single Page Web Applications (SPA). Which is the migration from static web pages and database driven web apps to dynamically driven HTML, CSS and JavaScript apps designed using popular JavaScript frameworks and libraries like: Ember. js - Ember. js is an open-source client-side JavaScript web application framework based on the model-view-controller (MVC) software architectural pattern. It allows developers to create scalable single-page applications[1] by incorporating common idioms and best practices into a framework that provides a rich object model, declarative two-way data binding, computed properties, automatically-updating templates powered by Handlebars. js, and a router for managing application state Angular. js - AngularJS is an open-source JavaScript framework, maintained by Google, that assists with running what are known as single-page applications. Its goal is to augment browser-based applications with model–view–controller (MVC) capability, in an effort to make both development and testing easier. Backbone. js - Backbone.... read more.

Tags: Angular.js, API Evangelist, Backbone.js, Ember.js, JavaScript, Single Page Applications, SPA

APIs in DFW

by on 05/15/2013

I just got back from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I visited Dallas last night to help kick off the first gathering of the DFW API Professionals Meetup. We got together at Microsoft around 6PM and I talked from 6:30 until 8:00, evolving on my From Web, to ProgrammableWeb to ProgrammableWorld talk. The meetup was about 45 people ranging from developers to investors. I showed up with a lot of content, but I wanted to make sure and cover the full API spectrum, while also introducing some new content about specifically about API consumption. During the event I had some time to get to know the theRightAPI, Proxomo, Layer 7 Technologies and Pariveda Solutions folks--while connecting with the rest of the meet up group members. Then, this morning theRightAPI crew brought me out to Plano, TX to the AT&T Foundry (@attfoundry), where I got to talk with Vincent Button (@vebutton) and Jennifer Conley (@jenniferconley). I was a little blown away by what I saw. It wasn't what I was used when visiting the campuses of big telco companies in the past. The facility was something you associate with Silicon Valley and Bay Area.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, API Meetup, AT&T Foundry, Bookshout, Dallas, DFW, Fort Worth, Gravity Center


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