On Fri, Aug 23, 2019 at 4:28 AM Thierry Carrez <thierry@openstack.org> wrote:
Michael McCune wrote:
[...] I don't have any answers to this more existential question about the SIG, but we as a group felt it was a good idea to reach out to the wider community for advice and guidance. So, what do you all have to say? What would you like to see from the API-SIG moving forward? Should we re-evaluate the purpose of this group and how it relates to the OpenStack community? [...]
Thanks for starting this thread, Michael. Just because something was needed at one point in our history does not mean we need to continue doing it forever, so reevaluating periodically is important.
The API WG was originally formed to (1) provide guidelines for API design for project teams to follow, and (2) improve API user experience by converging the OpenStack APIs to be consistent. It was then converted to a SIG, but the original purpose remained.
Would you say that those goals have been completed? Are the documented guidelines sufficiently complete to be usable? Is the resulting API user experience sufficiently consistent? If not, maybe this is an opportunity to recruit, by painting a desirable common goal, maybe leveraging the "community goals" process to achieve incremental, baby-steps improvements within the scope of a release cycle.
i think the questions you lead with are excellent, and definitely something that we as a SIG, and community, should consider. although i feel quite good about the current state of the guidelines i'm sure there is room for improvement, but i think the question about the resulting API user experience is quite poignant. these are topics we are definitely bringing up for Ed's last meeting next week ;)
Personally I think it's always good to have a group of API design experts that project teams can tap into when they have questions on good API design. I just have no idea how often such advice is actually asked for. How often do you get questions on API design from projects adding features to their API? Would you say that when a new project adds an API, it is well-designed, or it would have benefited from your advice?
these days, the rate of questions to the group has slowed but there are still times when we get called up (maybe once a month or less). i agree that having a group of experienced API engineers /does/ help the broader community, i think the tough part to evaluate is the impact we have on a day-to-day basis. in the past i have experienced first hand the effects of the API SIG and i have usually been very pleased and delighted that the group had such a wide reach. within the last few years though i have not had as much direct contact, it has mainly been through SIG meetings. i really appreciate the questions you are posing, i don't think i have good answers for them but i believe the SIG should put some time into thinking about, and answering, them. thanks again for the thoughtful comments =) peace o/
Cheers,
-- Thierry Carrez (ttx)