With 2014 in the books, we take a final look back at the stories of 2014 that captured your attention. Here is a recap of the 25 most popular stories of the year.
As we turn the calendar to 2015, it's a good time to reflect on the stories of 2014 that resonated with our readers. A range of stories made the list from top 10 style lists, to video games and comic books, prescriptive how-to articles and of course, news about giants Google and Apple. Here is a recap of the 25 most popular stories of the year.
Top Tools to Help You Mock Web Services
This article provides an overview of the growing number of tools that allow developers to mock web services. The tools are separated into three categories: web-based solutions, servers and desktop software.
Converter Makes JSON as Understandable as a Spreadsheet
JSON became the de facto format used by web APIs due to its simplicity. For many people though, spreadsheet tables remain the easiest way to understand large sets of data. Eric Mill created a JSON-to-CSV converter to address this.
Review: Postman Client Makes RESTful API Exploration a Breeze
Janet Wagner’s in-depth review of the browser app Postman takes a look at the popular REST client for testing web services created by Abhinav Asthana.
Most Popular APIs: At Least One Will Surprise You
Back in January, Adam DuVander combed through ProgrammableWeb's tracking data to look at the most popular APIs since the site launched. The list included some heavy hitters as well as some lesser known providers and even an API or two that are no longer with us.
New Guild Wars 2 APIs Coming Soon
Janet Wagner offered an in-depth preview of the since released v2 APIs for the popular online role-playing game Guild Wars 2.
Marvel gives comic book characters their own API
Marvel opened up their epic archive, spanning over 70 years and 8,000 characters, to developers worldwide. The response to the still in beta API was immediate with thousands of developers signing up in the first weeks.
Pushbullet Releases New and Improved API
The team behind the popular push notification app Pushbullet, released their newest API in May. The API updates included push history, push functionality across multiple devices and access to event and notification streams.
Can Telegram Beat WhatsApp with a Public API?
In the days following WhatsApp's $19 billion acquisition by Facebook, the app maker found one of its competitors buoyed by its public API.
Two Great Social Data Platforms: How DataSift and Gnip Stack Up
A detailed side-by-side comparison of DataSift and Gnip, two leading enterprise social data platforms that provide APIs. Which one is best for your project?
10 Reasons to Ignore Apple iWatch and Stick With Your Fitbit
On the eve of the Apple Watch announcement, Doron Katz looked at why developers may have wanted to take a wait and see attitude on Apple's still to be released device. Furthermore he offers reasons for developers to consider sticking with the Fitbit platform.
Telerik Launches Cross-Platform Development Environment
The argument between native and web development is evergreen. Michael Vizard covered Telerik's unveiling of their platform that attempted to keep developers from having to make that choice.
PayPal Releases Kraken to Help Spur Node.js Adoption
PayPal open-sourced their Kraken implementation of the express framework with the hopes of spurring adoption among the Node.js community.
Four Great Data Dashboard Platforms: Ducksboard, Geckoboard, Klipfolio, and Leftronic
Data dashboard platforms have seen an increase in use across organizations of all sizes. This article provides an in-depth comparison, looking at four real-time business data and analytics dashboard platforms.
How to Build RESTful APIs Using PHP and Laravel
Laravel is a relatively new object-oriented MVC framework for PHP that has been growing in popularity. Patricio Robles offers a tutorial on bulding a RESTful API using Laravel.
Modern API Architectural Styles Offer Developers Choices
Here we take a look at the most commonly used modern web API architectural styles including tunneling, URI, hypermedia, and event-driven.
Pebble Maps Out API Developer Engagement
A conversation with Thomas Sarlandie, Developer Evangelist at Pebble, uncovers some interesting tidbits on Pebble's approach to developer engagement. Included is a discussion on Pebble's business model for developers.
Why Node.js is Ideal for the Internet of Things
The Internet of Things will bring many challenges including scalability, low resource requirements, and easy code maintenance. Guest Matt Robinson argues that Node.js is suited to meet each of those challenges.
The Emergence of API-First Development
API-first design continued to gain traction in 2014 and this article was the first in a two-part series looking at the trend. Here Patricio Robles examined real-world examples as an illustration of why API-first design is taking hold with many companies.
Minecraft Server Software and Modding Plug-Ins Facing Uncertain Future
The Minecraft developer community faced some unexpected legal issues this year. These included a DMCA copyright infringement notice that caused thousands of Minecraft servers to be shut down, updates to the end-user license agreement, and fallout from Microsoft's purchase of Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5 billion.
Open Data Now: Hottest Contenders for 2014
Kicking off 2014, Mark Boyd spoke with Joel Gurin, author of Open Data Now. Gurin offered his take on some of the biggest opportunities for open data.
Google's New Gmail API Could Reinvent Email
When Google announced the Gmail API at the Google I/O developer conference, it was touted by some as a step in the direction of turning Gmail into a platform. Developers can use the API to perform CRUD operations on email messages, attachments, drafts, threads and labels.
Google Maps API Now Supports GeoJSON
Google updated their Google Maps API offering support for GeoJSON, an open source file format that eases visualization creation. With GeoJSON support, developers can pull richer mapping data with just a single line of code.
How to Secure Your REST API the Right Way
At Gluecon 2014 Les Hazelwood, CTO at Stormpath presented his thoughts on the best practices for securing a REST API based on 18 months spent researching REST security best practices, implementing them in the Stormpath API, and figuring out what works. His list of best practices was aimed at the do-it-yourselfer while acknowledging that many developers may want to seek out out of the box solution.
GE Plans to Expose APIs for the Industrial Internet
GE views its Predix platform, created to manage and connect industrial assets, as central to what it is calling the industrial Internet. In January, GE announced their intention to open up their platform to API developers.
How To Create a RESTful API with Node.js
Building off a previous how-to that showed how to create a RESTful API to search videos; this tutorial looks at how to implement the same interface using node.js.