Recording of OpenAPI and Swagger presentation (for STC and WTD San Diego)
Video
You can watch two versions of the video. If you want the STC San Diego version that includes my talking head and the STC / WTD intro remarks, see this video:
I didn’t like how my talking head seemed to squish the video over to the left, so I also uploaded my own recording. This second recording excludes the talking head and expands the window full screen, and also shows the chat window and occasional webinar controls.
Slides
Here are the slides:
Audio only
Listen here:
Presentation description
Swagger UI and the OpenAPI specification
OpenAPI is a specification for describing REST APIs. As an analogy, you can think of the OpenAPI specification like the specification for DITA. With DITA, there are specific XML elements used to define help components, and a required order and hierarchy to those elements. Different tools can read DITA and build out a documentation website from the information.
With OpenAPI, instead of XML, you have set of JSON objects, with a specific schema that defines their naming, order, and contents. This JSON file describes each part of your REST API (the endpoints, parameters, responses, etc). By describing your API in a standard format, publishing tools can programmatically ingest the information and process it.
Swagger UI provides one option to read the OpenAPI specification document and generate an interactive documentation website from it. Interactive documentation created with Swagger lets users try out requests and see actual responses directly from within the documentation.
You can read the details in either the STC or WTD event pages:
The event was held February 13, 2018.
About Tom Johnson
I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.
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