preface

For most of my career, I have worked on connecting software bricks together using various software interface technologies, from simple files and databases to remote software interfaces based on RPC, Corba, Java RMI, SOAP web services, and web APIs. Throughout these years, I have been fortunate to work on motley distributed systems, mixing very old mainframe technology with state-of-the art cloud systems and everything in between. I also have been fortunate to work on both sides of software interfaces in various contexts. I worked on IVR (Interactive Voice Response), websites, and mobile applications built on top of huge service-oriented architecture systems. I’ve built both private and public web services and web APIs for frontend and backend applications. During all these years, I complained a lot about the terrible software interfaces, and I fell into many traps and created terrible software interfaces too.

As years passed, and technology evolved from RPC to SOAP web services and web APIs, connecting software together became more and more simple from a technical point of view. But whatever the technology used, I have learned that a software interface is far more than technical plumbing or a by-product of a software project.