I am trying to understand the difference between IPAAS and API. My general understanding is that they are two different things that sits between different applications.
To me they seem to be the same; linking two applications to each other. I don't understand the difference between them. I am not a programmer. What are the two in layman's terms?
Related
When I am looking into approach's used for the development of API's, I came across multiple approaches like Code-First, API-First, Design-API-First.
I clearly understand Code-First approach how it is different from other two. But I am not able to get the exact difference between API-First and Design-First approach.
Summary from links:
API First:
API's are considered as first class citizens by the organization.
You design each of your APIs around a contract written in an API
description language like Open API for consistency, reusability, and broad
interoperability.
Design-API-First:
Describing every API design in an iterative way that both humans and computers can understand before you write any code.
API design-first is about the process of creating the API itself.
In design API first approach there will be lot of collaboration in designing of the API.
My understanding by far:
I feel 1 and 2 points of Design-API-First is saying same thing as API First because for example Open API specification is understood by both humans and computers. Is there anything more to it?
So, the only difference there will be collaboration added here by involving stakeholders, developers, customers etc?
So, when we use Design API First, we can say we are also using API-First?
References:
Probably I am able to get the exact context from the following links,
please use them and see if you can get the right understand of it and
address this question.
https://blog.stoplight.io/api-first-vs.-api-design-first-a-comprehensive-guide
https://blog.axway.com/product-insights/amplify-platform/application-integration/api-first-design-api-first
https://www.ecosmob.com/design-first-or-api-first-where-does-future-lies/
When working on a complicated project, many people will involved in the developemnt, over a long time span. Therefore comes the problem of how to get everyone involved to understand the domain model.
When a project is first developed following DDD, it's probably well discussed among all people, and is designed carefully. At this stage it's relatively easy for everyone to understand and agree on the underlying domain model.
However as the project iterated over a longer period, different groups of people may be involved and few people could still hold the full picture. Even if the code is very well maintained, it's hard for non-programmers, including domain expert/ product managers/ testers, to grasp the business rules embeded in the code.
The only way out I could think of, is to keep the documents/umls/graphs well maintained for each changes, and always reflect the underlying model. However I think this is a huge challenge for any non-trival project. And it's very hard to decide how much details need to be included in the document.
Is there any best practice which I could learn from, such that the domain model could be well understood by people, and is also easy to evolve with the product?
Use Behaviour Driven Development (BDD).
BDD is like TDD. But BDD always focuses on testing domain behaviour, and tests are defined using the domain's Ubiquitous Language. All stories/features/scenarios can be written in a structured, human readable form (like this)
And because the tests are tightly coupled to your code, they have to stay in sync (assuming that your team is disciplined in keeping tests up-to-date).
In my experience, this offers the most economical solution for exposing up-to-date domain rules in a moderately readable format.
The most important strategy that comes from the DDD are the Bounded contexts. This corresponds to the (sub)domains in the business. Ideally they should map one to one. So, the first step that should be done is to clearly identify the (sub)domains; this is also the hardest.
Instead of keeping a lot of diagrams with a lot of details that are hard to keep up to date with the project, one should draw a context map.
After this you have already split the problem in pieces that are more manageable. Seeing a context map one could understand the big picture in a manner of minutes.
For each (sub)domain you can keep a list of main business rules. The Task management software (i.e. Jira) could be the single source of truth for these.
I'm an Electronic engineer and I'm not a windows programmer. I know how stacks work(in microcontrollers) but I wonder to know how it operate in a windows applications when we come across a definition like multi threading and so on. it should be one place to store but I want to gain some knowledge about it.
I would be appreciate if you introduce me some good references to read?
Thanks
Your question is extremely broad and will depend on many different things, but I'm listing a very common scenario of compiled native applications on x86.
Typically each thead has its own stack which holds local variables and function return addresses. The stack is also typically how parameters are passed to methods.
I have 2 applications that are going to be built (possibly a 3rd API), all are going to use the same database. What is the best way to use the same models across all applications.
Also, what are some of the caveats you have experienced or foresee with this method. Looking for the best solution to this.
Rails, as opinionated software, prefers a single app, rather than shared models. I've tried it both ways. Are you going to just have copies of the models that can get out of sync? Are you still planning to use Rails' migrations? When you have multiple apps, migrations become difficult. Do you use just one app for migrations? Then you lose the ability to check in migrations along with the code it refers to. Automating builds can become very difficult. You can possibly find a way share migrations too, but that requires some source code management sleight-of-hand which ultimately makes it more difficult to do separate apps and still get everything Rails has to offer. At that point you may want to look into Sinatra.
On the other hand, there's a lot of organizing you can do in a single app that keeps the model domain shared, yet separates the controllers, such as using namespaces or engines. I'd recommend those techniques.
I work for a large state government agency that is a tad behind the times. Our skill sets are outdated and budgetary freezes prevent any training or hiring of new employees/consultants (firing people is also impossible). Designing business objects, implementing design patterns, establishing code libraries and services, unit testing, source control, etc. are all things that you will not find being done here. We are as much of a 0 on the Joel Test as you can possibly get. The good news is that we can only go up from here!
We develop desktop CRUD applications (in C++, C#, or Java) that hit the Oracle database directly through an ODBC connection. We basically have GUI's littered with SQL statements and patchwork code. We have been told to move towards a service-oriented n-tier architecture to prevent direct access to the database and remove the Oracle Client need on user machines.
Is WCF the path we should be headed down? We've done a few of the n-tier application walkthroughs (like this one) and they seem easy to implement, but we just don't know enough to understand if we are even considering the right technologies. Utilizing the .NET generated typed DataSets seems like a nice stopgap to save us month/years of work (as opposed to creating new business objects from the ground up for numerous projects). Is this canned approach viable for a first step?
I recently started using WCF services for my Data Layer in some web applications and I must say, it's frustrating at the beginning (the first week or so), but it is totally worth it once the code is deployed.
You should first try it out with a small existing app, or maybe a proof of concept to make sure it will fit your needs.
From the description of the environment you are in, I'm sure you'll realize the benefit almost immediately.
The last company I worked for chose WCF for almost the exact reason you describe above. There is lots of good documentation and books for WCF, its relatively easy to get working, and WCF supports a lot of configuration options.
There can be some headaches when you start trying to bend WCF to work in a way not specifically designed out of the box. These are generally configuration issues. But sites like this or IDesign can help you through those.
First of all, I would definitely not (sorry for the emphasis) worry about the time you'll save using typed DataSet's versus creating your own business objects. That is usually not where you will spend most of your development time. I prefer using business objects myself.
In you're situation I would want to implement a proof-of-concept first. One that addresses all issues you may encounter. This proof-of-concept should implement an entire use case, starting on the client, retrieving data from the database and returning it to the client. You should feel confident about your implementation before continuing.
Then about choice of technology. WCF is definitely a good choice for communication between your client applications and the service layer. I suppose that both your clients as well as your service layer will become C# applications? That makes things a lot easier since interoperability between different platforms (Java/C# for example) is still not trivial although it should work in most cases.
Take a look at Entity Framework (as there are a couple Oracle providers available for it already) in conjunction with .NET 3.5 SP1 which enables built-in WCF serialization of your EF generated classes.
Here is a good blog to get started: http://blogs.msdn.com/dsimmons
CSLA might be a good fit for your N-Tier desktop apps. It supports WCF, has a large dev community, and is well documented. It is very object oriented.