CADL

Common API Description Language

One language to rule them all

Yet another description language?

Hey there are multiple languages in the wild to describe apis or webservices.

And always remeber: http://xkcd.com/927/

So why CADL?

Well we:

create MVC architectures
design our applications to be accessable via multiple protocols or even by CLI
have clear validation rules what kind of information will be accepted
return various types of informations and various types of contents
have to deal with privacy and data protection issues
have to deal diffrent protection levels for APIs and informations
need to deal with licence and copyright foo
have to deal with backwards compatibility / diffrent api versions
have a multi langual world
have artificial borders and laws that prevent us from dealing with some regions
sometimes need usage constraints like intranet only
maybe want money if somebody use our services
need so much more information than just a bunch of rudimental tech information
sometimes just need information how to deal with that fkn (vendor) system
do stuff that has so much more impact than just beeing some piece of technology

The technology part is only one part of our work. Regarding to the actual success stories or the absolutly crazy legal situation it's even maybe even a minor part of the big picture.

So if we want to descripe an API but use a languages that only describes the technical structure don't we forget the major part of that API?

CADL provides a way to describe (almost) every aspect of your API in one format in a lightweigt JSON format.

About

Common API Description Language