If you're a broadcaster, media company, telco we want to hear from you.
We believe there's need for an ultra-pragmatic one-page check list of items which make the API ready for integration: discoverable, easily accessible and comprehensible. Control vendors repeatedly comment that the difficulty of integrating against APIs varies widely between vendors. This suggestion aims to improve that. If we had an 'Integration Ready API' checklist, broadcasters could ask all their vendors to work towards this as part of the initial technical selection discussion. Much the same as a technical delivery spec for a programme or a document detailing cybersecurity standards for a company.
What might be on the list? Initial requirements could be: Easy access to the API documentation, for instance the product itself contains the documentation. The ability for a vendor to integrate and test the API without purchasing the software. API Documentation is complete with criteria for what makes for complete documentation. Include an interactive API explorer or a playground that allows developers to try out API calls and understand the structure and responses better.
This is not a suggestion to describe how to write or structure an API. The work between SMPTE and the OSA, known as Catena has this in scope. The Catena project is not intending to supply any best practices regarding how to make the API easily available, discoverable and comprehensible.
