API Evangelist Conversations

Kin Lane

Mapping the technical details of API operations to the human conversation.

  1. May 20

    API Evangelist Conversation with Mike Amundsen on the Lineage of the Web, Hypermedia, Capabilities, and What Comes Next

    Mike Amundsen has been writing about hypermedia, REST, microservices, and the semantics of the web for the better part of two decades. In this conversation we walk the lineage — Paul Otlet, Ted Nelson, Wendy Hall, Leonard Richardson — through hypermedia and into the contemporary conversation around capabilities, affordances, and agentic systems. Mike makes the case that capabilities are not just an architectural pattern but a worldview: the ability to do something, made meaningful through ontology, taxonomy, and choreography. Along the way we talk about what the web has become, why microservices still matter, what "agency" really means in an agentic system, and how to stay grounded — and keep your spark — when the hype cycle pulls everyone toward whatever today's tulip happens to be.

    52 min

  2. 03/05/2025

    API Evangelist Conversation With Marc Laventure of Scalar

    I sat down today with Marc Laventure of Scalar to talk about their API client and documentation offerings, and how they see OpenAPI as a specification. Marc's taken a slightly different approach than other API clients solutions and centering their solutions on just OpenAPI, rather than creating another spec. I feel like it is a sensible approach and can help reduce the complexity across API operations. Marc also shared his vision for their business model and where they will make money, and how they intend to balance that with their very modular and local open-source solutions--which is something I can get behind.

    18 min

  3. 02/27/2025

    API Evangelist Conversation With Juan Cruz Viotti of Sourcemeta About Schema Registries

    Juan Cruz Viotti of Sourcemeta came by for a conversation about the schema registry solution he had recently built. Juan has gone deep into the JSON Schema rabbit hole, deeper than anyone else I've ever met. His validation tooling and schema registry are providing a new foundation for enterprises to get their schema house in order. This is something Juan and I both agree is the single most foundational thing you can invest in when it comes to API governance. I learn so much everytime I talk to Juan and explore his work, and we will be working together more around the evolution of his schema registry, and API Evangelist will be leaning more into using the JSON Schema educational resources he's contributed to at https://www.learnjsonschema.com/2020-12/.

    18 min

  4. 02/06/2025

    API Evangelist Conversation With Frank Kilcommins About the OpenAPI Arazzo Specification

    Frank Kilcommins of SmartBear came by to talk about the OpenAPI Arazzo specification. He shared the history how it came to be and how it is changing the conversation inside and outside the OpenAPI Initiative (OAI). Franks done amazing work to move the API workflows specification over the finish line, but also keep it evolving and moving forward afterwards. The specification has renewed energy with API service providers who are integrating the spec into their API guided walkthroughs, SDK generation, and testing. I am a big fan of Frank's work, and wish we had 10 more of him working at the OpenAPI, so if you are feeling like you have some spare cycles, I recommend you rolling up your sleeves and getting involved. Thanks for coming by and sharing Frank!!

    17 min

  5. 02/03/2025

    API Evangelist Conversation with Dave Shanley of Princess Beef Heavy Industries

    Quobix from from Princess Beef Heavy Industries came by again, this time to talk about OpenAPI Doctor and libopenapi at it's core. I knew "The Doctor" was a modular OpenAPI editor w/ governance built-in, but I didn't realize how deeply modularity is baked into it's design. This modularity allows Quobix to stitch together Vacuum, libopenapi, OpenAPI changes, wiretap, and other Princess Beef Heavy Industries solutions, but also potentially other 3rd party solutions. This modularity in API hubs, dashboards, and tools is fast becoming a common themes in conversations that I am having, and something I am going to work to leverage more as part of my work. This episode went 30 minutes because I wanted to do two separate episoides, 1) OpenAPI, 2) libopenapi, but the stories are so entertwhined we just did it back to back.

    32 min

  6. 01/29/2025

    API Evangelist Conversation with Vincent Biret, Microsoft Graph SDKs Principal Software Developer at Microsoft

    I sat down with Vincent Biret, Microsoft Graph SDKs Principal Software Developer at Microsoft to talk about all things integration. I am interested in the intersection of APIs, specifications, and integrations where Vincent operates. Vincent shared his view of important role that OpenAPI plays in taming the Microsoft Graph API landscape, but specifically how it gets applied as part of producer or consumer driven SDK generation using Kiota. Vincent shared all kinds of experience and wisdom at this intersection, but he also shared a pragmatic view of the role APIs, specs, and integrations play when it comes to training LLMs, but also feeding agents deployed on top of those LLMs with the real-time resources and capabilities they will need. It was an illuminating conversation and one I learned a lot, and will be crafting more stories about over the coming weeks.

    18 min

  7. 01/28/2025

    API Evangelist Conversation with Dave Shanley of Princess Beef Heavy Industries

    I have been wanting to sit down with Dave for a while now, but I needed to spend more time with Vaccuum to understand where it would fit into my world of API governance. I did that, and then finally got to sit down with Dave Shanley of Princess Beef Heavy Industries, and creator of Vacuum, OpenAPI Doctor, and other important OpenAPI tooling. I finally got the full background of why he felt Spectral was falling short when it came to linting our API specifications, and it was much more than just about speed. I left our conversation with a head full of ideas and a bunch of notes on what is next for API governance and rules, and need to have Dave back talk about OpenAPI Doctor, libopenapi, and his other great work.

    23 min

  8. 01/06/2025

    API Evangelist Conversation with Ben Hutton of The Guild Software

    Ben Hutton of the Guild came by to talk about his recent LinkedIn thread about APIs vs SDKs. The topic is an evergreen one that brings out all of the opinions and I enjoy talking with Ben about it to get his pragmatic view of things. Ben has a lot of experience as a software engineer and working on the JSON Schema specification, which I think gives him unique perspective on what is needed when it comes to integrating with APIs. Ben was on my team at Postman, but we are now collaborating on helping people understand the importance of getting their enterprise schema house in order. Thanks for coming by Ben, and I am looking forward to further unpacking what enterprises are needing from schema to SDKs in future conversations.

    23 min
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Mapping the technical details of API operations to the human conversation.

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