Aaron Cope from Flickr gave a good talk this morning entitled “The API As Curator” which meandered its way around but contained some gem quotes and ideas:
“once upon a time I was a painter, and then the web happened”
“you do art to share it”
“the web: it seemed a perfect way around the gallery system, which as an artist is the bane of your life”
“I come in peace”
“making the web’s plumbing non-scary”
“if you’re talking about the web then sooner or later you have to talk about computer programming”
and my favourite one of all:
“An API is the nubby bits on Lego”
He focused in general on the importance of the both the developer as permanent and valued member of any creative web team, but also the process of development itself: the iterative, always changing, rapid-cycle and how important this is to anyone trying to remain innovative and creative online.
But “nubby bits” is still the piece that stays with me 🙂
Hi Mike,
I like the Lego analogy too, but I think the important point about the Web is that all resources expose those same nubby bits. See e.g.
http://www.markbaker.ca/blog/2006/02/05/rest-vs-soa-the-lego-analogy/
I now have a new way to explain APIs to people that aren’t familiar with them. 🙂
Brandon Watts
Daylife Evangelist
Hey Pete
Yeah, I agree. But it works so well as a simple API-explaining concept. I like the simplicity.
Mike
Hi Brandon
Absolutely. Wish I’d though of it 🙂
I’ve not heard of Daylife. I’ll check it out.
Cheers
Mike
Thanks for offering to check us out, Mike! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments about Daylife or the nubby bits of our API. 😉
Brandon Watts
Daylife Evangelist