Web APIs - Challenges, Design Points, and Research Opportunities: Invited Talk at the 2nd International Workshop on API Usage and Evolution (WAPI ’18)

Web Application Programming Interfaces (Web APIs) provide programmatic, network-based access to remote data or functionalities. Applications, for example, use the Google Places API to learn about nearby establishments, use the Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook API to connect users with friends and family, or use the Stripe API to accept end-user payments. Increasingly, applications themselves consist of micro-services that expose their capabilities to one another using web APIs. In comparison to library APIs, which are a common subject of software engineering research, web APIs present unique challenges - both for providers and consumers - that are arguably much less explored yet. In this talk, we outline the characteristics of web APIs causing these challenges. We discuss relevant design points, both for providers and consumers, and how these design points have been implemented by different web API paradigms in recent years. Throughout the talk, we give examples of our research to address web API-related challenges. Our goal is to inspire WAPI attendees to take on some of the many research opportunities surrounding web APIs.