I think that it's supposed to be the exact opposite. APIs, and
especially web APIs, exist to provide access to your data outside of a
specific vendor implementation. That way you can have your OPAC from
$BIG_VENDOR, but use the bibliographic data from it in
$OPEN_SOURCE_PROJECT without having to access the database directly
(causing your DBAs to have sleepless nights.) Theoretically anything
that comes over HTTP is some form of structured text, so there
shouldn't be unreadable binary blobs.
In theory, that's how it's supposed to work. There's still crappy
implementations, but that's not the fault of the API - that's the
fault of the implementer.
-Andrew
On 23-Jul-09, at 9:22 AM, Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
On Jul 22, 2009, at 10:56 PM, Ross Singer wrote:
...Today almost all ILS products make claims regarding offering
more openness through APIs, Web services, and through a service-
oriented architecture (SOA)....
I heard someplace recently that APIs are the newest form of vendor
lock-in. What's your take?
--
Eric Lease Morgan
Head, Digital Access and Information Architecture Department
Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame
(574) 631-8604
