API Design Patterns

Motivation

Last night my husband asked, “what excites you about API design?” I love that question. Engineering is such a sprawling discipline, that I have found affect to be the most effective memory palace aid. Affinity. What does API remind you of? In that metaphoric landscape, why does API design matter?

Since we’re talking about an interface, conversation comes to mind, whether a heartfelt chat with a trusted friend or fun and education pick-up game of basketball with a stranger. Discourse has structure, and that structure is what allows cognition to parse out meaning and ressemble those nuggets into something useful to achieve some aim. If you’re interested in that world, Elements of Discourse Understanding by Joshi, Webber, and Sag is a great place to start.

I think to make things even more concrete, I’d like to track a metaphoric first date as my memory palace for API design pattterns, because love is awesome and those are definitely conversations that can be just another Tuesday coffee or a conversation that changes our lives.