Creating a Great Developer Experience Through SDKs

CREATING A GREAT DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE THROUGH SDKS

TAYLOR BARNETT Developer Evangelist at Keen IO taylor@keen.io @taylor_atx

@taylor_atx

Collect & store data from users, websites, apps & smart devices. Query instantly to share results with teams & customers, anywhere. @taylor_atx

LET’S BE REAL ABOUT SDKS @taylor_atx

Most API providers aren’t updating their SDKs enough 😞 @taylor_atx

Get the most attention when they are 🔥broken🔥 @taylor_atx

Many of SDKs are now open source, which is great, but… @taylor_atx

There are a lot of great HTTP request libraries out there now 🎉 @taylor_atx

We could talk for a really long time about why using SDKs aren’t great @taylor_atx

WHY SHOULD YOU PROVIDE SDKS? @taylor_atx

Most of the time using an API is important, but peripheral to why the software is being written @taylor_atx

Your SDKs are your API @taylor_atx

SDKs give quick feedback on how your API works @taylor_atx

There’s a business case for putting resources into SDKs @taylor_atx

OTHER REASONS • When there’s no good built in HTTP request library • Error handling • Building clients with 100% API coverage • Helping users with authentication • Best practices with complex APIs @taylor_atx

CREATING A GREAT DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE @taylor_atx

PRODUCT VS COMMUNITY SDKS • Clearly define the two to set better expectations • If you don’t build them, Community SDKs will appear • Leads to a scattered developer experience • Community SDK bugs will appear in your Support channels @taylor_atx

DOCUMENTATION • Write the SDK documentation first • Consistency • Helps evaluate the experience @taylor_atx

DOCUMENTATION • Include sections for • Troubleshooting, with common errors and issues users run into —> Your Support team will love you for this • Changelog or release notes @taylor_atx

SCARY WORLD OF DEPENDENCIES • Help your users navigate it 😱 • Users need to know changes between SDK versions • Survey your options @taylor_atx

DANGERS OF NOT MAKING YOUR OWN SDKS • Not eating your own dog food is dangerous • Helps you understand the cost of building with your own API • It’s also encouragement to add new API features into your SDK when they released, not later @taylor_atx

NATIVE AS POSSIBLE • Please do not auto generate SDKs badly from your API • Example: Go find a Go developer to write your Go SDK • Start with the languages that are the most popular for your target audience and that your team is familiar with @taylor_atx

COMMON DATA STRUCTURES • Avoid inconsistency in your users’ code • Example: JSON is a great option for representing data • Want to map well to data structures in many different languages @taylor_atx

USAGE TRACKING • Great opportunity to learn about your users 📊 • Critical statistics for developing, maintaining, and improving your SDKs • Every popular API company today is tracking this: SendGrid, Twilio, Stripe, Dropbox, etc. @taylor_atx

USAGE TRACKING # Example from the Twilio Python module # https://github.com/twilio/twilio-python user_agent = “twilio-python %s (python-%s)” % ( LIBRARY_VERSION, platform.python_version(), ) headers = { “User-Agent”: user_agent, “Accept-Charset”: “utf-8”, } @taylor_atx

EXAMPLES @taylor_atx

💖 THANK YOU! taylor@keen.io @taylor_atx