What Makes APIs Hard to Learn? Answers from Developers

The paper discusses the application program interface (API). Most software projects reuse components exposed through APIs. In fact, current-day software development technologies are becoming inseparable from the large APIs they provide. An API is the interface to implemented functionality that devel...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE software 2009-11, Vol.26 (6), p.27-34
Main Author: Robillard, M.P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
API
API design
API usability
Application programming interface
Application software
Architects
code examples
Code reuse
Computer programs
Design
Designers
Developers
Documentation
empirical study
Job titles
Learning
Organizational learning
Polls & surveys
Programming
Programming profession
Reuse
Seniority
Software
Software development
software documentation
Software engineering
Systems design
Tasks
Usability
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Summary:The paper discusses the application program interface (API). Most software projects reuse components exposed through APIs. In fact, current-day software development technologies are becoming inseparable from the large APIs they provide. An API is the interface to implemented functionality that developers can access to perform various tasks. APIs support code reuse, provide high-level abstractions that facilitate programming tasks, and help unify the programming experience. A study of obstacles that professional Microsoft developers faced when learning to use APIs uncovered challenges and resulting implications for API users and designers. The article focuses on the obstacles to learning an API. Although learnability is only one dimension of usability, there's a clear relationship between the two, in that difficult-to-use APIs are likely to be difficult to learn as well. Many API usability studies focus on situations where developers are learning to use an API. The author concludes that as APIs keep growing larger, developers will need to learn a proportionally smaller fraction of the whole. In such situations, the way to foster more efficient API learning experiences is to include more sophisticated means for developers to identify the information and the resources they need-even for well-designed and documented APIs.
ISSN:0740-7459
1937-4194
DOI:10.1109/MS.2009.193