APIs are accepted as the core of modern software Development and architecture. The number of tech companies is increasing and adopting digital transformation at a much faster pace which requires the software development to be done at much faster rates. In today’s programming world, Apis are the glue that holds your systems together as you develop products with customer experience in mind. Matrix Marketers is experiencing the power of the APIs in their applications built for the various clients.

The external APIs allow developers to develop products with latest platforms, internal APIs are required by own products for better communication between systems. Well-built APIs is the difference between a product that can scale and be easily maintained and one that can’t.

A bad Documentation can take an API development company I too lose a lot of options are available in the market for the same functionality. So, our team is discussing the major challenges to overcome the issues faced during the building of APIs for an application and more precisely focusing on the importance of the documentation of the API.

Many developers might want to be willing to do the documentation. They are just willing to do coding for a new API for new products. However, improper planning leads to the 4 common challenges when building APIs:

No Documentation: We can’t expect a developer to work on an API without seeing its documentation. So, it doesn’t matter, how good you are at programming if no one else can make use of it. The reality is that an API is only as good as its documentation.

Disparate Documentation and Functionality: The effective API documentation is required to be done. If the documentation doesn’t clearly mention the process of incorporating them in the code then you may not be able to use many functions of API. The developers will be frustrated when presented with the challenge of integrating it into new products.

Undocumented Changes: If the faster development is required to be done then an assistant can be provided to a developer for maintaining the documentation listing all the main features of the API.

API can hinder the product development: When developing the frontend and backend concurrently, there’s a high chance that the development of one system will become blocked if the API functionality is not known for the other one.

A successful developer’s experience is counted by the success of the API developed by him. Building an API hindered by these challenges will make it difficult for developers to interact with your product. The developers can advertise their own APIs by writing the effective APIs.

Documentation First—The Key To Building Better Apis

Because of APIs backbone of open source technologies, they deserve more thoughtful planning than the developers currently giving them. The documentation and development of API should be done side by side.

The APIs are well explained with documentation first approach which means creating a detailed explanation of what the API is meant to do and how systems will integrate with your product. API documentation can be used and treated as the words of exchange between the two-people sitting apart and not seeing each other.

By setting the exact methods to use front end and back end, you can develop a straightforward documentation of the API.

The following tools can be used to match the developer’s work and the documentation:

API Blueprint: A documentation API tool to create effective documentation which is used by almost every big or small company

Dredd: This program offers a testing framework that helps you ensure there’s parity between API functionality and the documentation you created in API Blueprint.

Apiary: The developers can gain every insight as the detailed documentation is done which can directly read the functionality of program syntax and creates a website for more collaboration and visibility. API also acts as a mock server, to provide uninterrupted processes during the API completion.

The tools and little attention on the documentation can create awesome benefits and help you to overcome the challenges of API development to develop a commercial product.

End-To-End Product Development Using API

The sensitivity of the APIs is to support new technologies like cloud, big data etc. they are just one part of a long product development process. Once you cross barriers of documentation to use APIs, there are many responsibilities to address to build a product that maximizes your ROI.