Application Programming Interface Documentation: What Do Software Developers Want?

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Meng ◽  
Stephanie Steinhardt ◽  
Andreas Schubert
Keyword(s):  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Application Programming Interface ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Software Developers ◽  
Application Programming ◽  
Api Documentation ◽  
Programming Interface

The success of an application programming interface (API) crucially depends on how well its documentation meets the information needs of software developers. Previous research suggests that these information needs have not been sufficiently understood. This article presents the results of a series of semistructured interviews and a follow-up questionnaire conducted to explore the learning goals and learning strategies of software developers, the information resources they turn to and the quality criteria they apply to API documentation. Our results show that developers initially try to form a global understanding regarding the overall purpose and main features of an API, but then adopt either a concepts-oriented or a code-oriented learning strategy that API documentation both needs to address. Our results also show that general quality criteria such as completeness and clarity are relevant to API documentation as well. Developing and maintaining API documentation therefore need to involve the expertise of communication professionals.

scholarly journals Scout-bot: Leveraging API Community Knowledge for Exploration and Discovery of API Learning Resources

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Ajam ◽  
Carlos Rodriguez ◽  
Boualem Benatallah
Keyword(s):  
Application Programming Interface ◽  
Systematic Mapping Study ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Core Technology ◽  
Important Concern ◽  
Application Programming ◽  
Quality Dimensions ◽  
Api Documentation ◽  
Programming Interface

Application Programming Interface (API) is a core technology that facilitates developers’ productivity by enabling the reuse of software components. Understanding APIs and gaining knowledge about their usage are therefore fundamental needs for developers. Here, API documentation plays a pivotal role in enabling developers to take full advantage of the benefits brought by APIs. The quality of API documentation has therefore become an important concern given the celerity and dynamics at which APIs are now being made available to users. This article aims at exploring existing research in the area of API documentation in order to identify the associated quality dimensions addressed by the literature. The research is carried out as a systematic mapping study where 103 research papers selected from the literature were reviewed and a total of 5 core quality dimensions were identified and analyzed. By focusing on the two most relevant quality dimensions (understandability and completeness), this article presents an approach to enable API users to explore, discover and learn about APIs through API topic issues discussed in Stack Overflow (SO). We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach through Scout-bot, our tool for exploration and discovery of API topic issues.

scholarly journals Development Methods and a Scenegraph Animation API for Cluster Driven Immersive Applications

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Newendorp ◽  
Christian Noon ◽  
Chiu-Shui Chan ◽  
Eliot Winer ◽  
Jim Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Application Programming Interface ◽  
Software Developers ◽  
Application Performance ◽  
Large Computer ◽  
Computer Cluster ◽  
Application Programming ◽  
Smooth Transitions ◽  
Development Methods ◽  
Minimal Effort ◽  
Programming Interface

This paper presents a scenegraph animation application programming interface (API), known as the Animation Engine, which was constructed for software developers to easily perform smooth transitions and manipulations to scenegraph nodes. A developer can use one line of code to enter the property, end state and number of frames to describe the animation, then the Animation Engine handles the rest in the background. The goal of the Animation Engine is to provide a simple API that integrates into existing applications with minimal effort. Additionally, techniques to improve virtual reality (VR) application performance on a large computer cluster are presented. These techniques include maintaining high frame rates with 4096 × 4096 pixel textures, eliminating extraneous network traffic and reducing long model loading time. To demonstrate the Animation Engine and the development techniques, an application known as the Virtual Universe was created. The Virtual Universe, designed to run in a six walled CAVE, allows users to freely explore a set of space themed environments. The architecture and development techniques for writing a stable immersive VR application on a large computer cluster, in addition to the creation of the Animation Engine, is presented in this paper.

An interview with Joanna Suau from Infobip on the design of application programming interface (API) documentation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bohm
Keyword(s):  
Programming Language ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Application Programming Interface ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Application Programming ◽  
Api Documentation ◽  
The University ◽  
Learning Programming ◽  
Programming Interface

Abstract About Joanna Suau Joanna studied English literature and culture at the University of Silesia in Poland, where she was born. She did a technical writing postgraduate degree in the picturesque city of Krakow and moved to the U.K. in 2012, to work for shipping solutions provider Pierbridge, where she mainly focused on user guides and walkthroughs of various types of shipping applications. Interested in what makes an app tick, Joanna started learning programming language (JavaScript) and explored CSS and HTML in more detail. This is when she discovered her passion for writing clean and appealing developer-oriented documentation, and moved to the start-up company Moltin, to become a part of the Developer Success team. Joanna has changed industry, and currently works in the field of telecommunication. She works for a messaging services provider, Infobip, contributing content to their robust API solutions.

Sistem Pengawasan Aktifitas Penggunaan Smartphone Android

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-31
Author(s):  
Rudianto Rudianto ◽  
Eko Budi Setiawan
Keyword(s):  
Application Programming Interface ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Image Content ◽  
Image File ◽  
Application Programming ◽  
Index Terms ◽  
Programming Interface

Availability the Application Programming Interface (API) for third-party applications on Android devices provides an opportunity to monitor Android devices with each other. This is used to create an application that can facilitate parents in child supervision through Android devices owned. In this study, some features added to the classification of image content on Android devices related to negative content. In this case, researchers using Clarifai API. The result of this research is to produce a system which has feature, give a report of image file contained in target smartphone and can do deletion on the image file, receive browser history report and can directly visit in the application, receive a report of child location and can be directly contacted via this application. This application works well on the Android Lollipop (API Level 22). Index Terms— Application Programming Interface(API), Monitoring, Negative Content, Children, Parent.

scholarly journals Advanced soft robot modeling in ChainQueen

Robotica ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Andrew Spielberg ◽  
Tao Du ◽  
Yuanming Hu ◽  
Daniela Rus ◽  
Wojciech Matusik
Keyword(s):  
Application Programming Interface ◽  
Material Point ◽  
Soft Robotics ◽  
Soft Robot ◽  
Inference Control ◽  
Simulation And Optimization ◽  
Efficient Simulation ◽  
Application Programming ◽  
Robot Modeling ◽  
Programming Interface

Abstract We present extensions to ChainQueen, an open source, fully differentiable material point method simulator for soft robotics. Previous work established ChainQueen as a powerful tool for inference, control, and co-design for soft robotics. We detail enhancements to ChainQueen, allowing for more efficient simulation and optimization and expressive co-optimization over material properties and geometric parameters. We package our simulator extensions in an easy-to-use, modular application programming interface (API) with predefined observation models, controllers, actuators, optimizers, and geometric processing tools, making it simple to prototype complex experiments in 50 lines or fewer. We demonstrate the power of our simulator extensions in over nine simulated experiments.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document