Maintaining & Managing APIs - What do you think Major Issues ?

[anilsr]

Building software & writing code is easy. Maintaining same is the pain in the a** . What do you think about common & critical issues developers and architects encounter while maintaining APIs ?

[dcouldwell · Accepted solution]

Having an automated, repeatable set of tests for each API that's orchestrated through a Continuous Integration set up is a must. If each time you make a change you need to manually regression test the API again is going to kill your productivity. If you're spending all your time maintaining your existing APIs and not building new ones you're going to get left behind.

Ideally this matures to a Continuous Delivery model where any change is automatically pushed out if automated tests and peer reviews all pass. This may not be possible in all organisations but having it a goal to aim for will mean you keep heading in the right direction.