DevSummit07:Whither Open APIs?

Notes taken by Tate Hausman, tate@dotorganize.net; send me an email if you want clarification.

We defined an "open API" as an API that is published, accessible, documented.

Lessons learned:

Building language-specific toolkits (PHP, javascript, dotNet) for your API is almost essential for making it useable by actual users.

Instead of thinking about technology standards, the most helpful thing this group might do is document best practices for creating APIs. "If there's anywhere that should be standards in APIs, it should be in the documentation and processes," says Greg Elin.

Sunlight Foundation gives away money to create APIs; see Greg Elin for details.

Jitterbit.org is an "integration server;" you download and install it, then point it to different data sources; it then pushes data back and forth

Is it possible that we should have an API conference? A day or two just talking about how to do your APIs best?