April 2018 Summaries

In this detailed exploration, the author describes a project that transforms FDA email alerts about food safety into SMS notifications using a combination of Postman, Twilio, and Context.io. Initially motivated by a love for Chipotle and the desire to share food safety alerts with others, the project leverages Postman's capabilities to automate and monitor email parsing and SMS distribution. The setup involves configuring API accounts with Context.io for email management and Twilio for sending texts, while Postman scripts manage the workflow, including handling edge cases and ensuring efficient data processing. Through this project, the author highlights Postman's ability to streamline API interactions and automate services, demonstrating its potential for creating dynamic and responsive applications. The experience also underscores the importance of adapting programming approaches to fit the tool's capabilities, ultimately leading to a flexible system that can be expanded for various real-time alerting purposes.

The Sushi Selector is a customizable Postman Collection designed to recommend nearby sushi restaurants by running locally within the Postman collection runner and posting suggestions directly to your Twitter. Users can adjust criteria such as location, distance, and price range through environment variables, and the collection can be modified for other searches like burger joints, parks, or tourist attractions. For those unfamiliar with Postman, a video series is available to guide users through essential concepts like sending and authorizing requests, writing tests, running collections, and chaining requests. To try the Sushi Selector, users can import the sample collection and environment into their Postman app, following detailed documentation and paying close attention to the Pre-request Script and Tests tabs for necessary code and comments.

Postman, a versatile tool initially developed as a Chrome extension, integrates seamlessly into developers' workflows by supporting an open ecosystem and offering multiple integration options. Key components for custom integrations include the Postman API and Newman, which enable programmatic access to Postman data and support for running collections locally or within continuous integration environments. Users can import and export various data formats and code using the Postman app, facilitating collaboration and communication. Postman also supports continuous integration by allowing developers to write and automate tests, ensuring endpoint functionality within CI/CD pipelines, with Newman scripts providing pass or fail exit codes. For advanced users, Postman Pro and Enterprise offer third-party integrations with tools like GitHub, PagerDuty, and Slack, while all users can create custom integrations via the Postman API.

Postman is a popular tool for developers, particularly those new to API testing and management, offering a user-friendly interface for sending requests and receiving responses. The platform is primarily known as an HTTP client but also serves as a robust environment for writing and automating tests, creating collections of requests, and chaining requests using environment variables. New users are encouraged to explore its features by sending requests, writing tests, creating collections, and utilizing the Postman sandbox for advanced functionalities. As users become more adept, they can delve deeper into workflow control, test automation, integrations with third-party tools, and advanced features like API documentation and monitoring. For additional support and resources, Postman offers comprehensive documentation, a YouTube channel, and a community forum to assist users in navigating any challenges they encounter.

Postman's Collection Runner allows users to execute all requests within a collection locally, facilitating API testing and performance measurement by generating detailed reports. Users can enhance testing by uploading data files, such as CSV or JSON, to simulate numerous scenarios and streamline database setup or teardown. The process involves importing data files and utilizing data variables in requests and scripts, with CSV files requiring UNIX format line endings and JSON files formatted as an array of key-value pairs. Postman's syntax for variable substitution in text fields uses double curly braces, while scripts rely on JavaScript and the pm.* API for accessing data file values. An example of using this functionality involves testing with data files about ramen search trends, showcasing the practical application of the Collection Runner's capabilities.

Jaggi is a Software Developer at Postman in the Bangalore office, where he has been working for nearly two years. He is known as "The Collection Ninja," which highlights his expertise with the Postman app, a tool he believes everyone should be familiar with. In his role, Jaggi works with various technologies and has recently been involved in cool projects that showcase his skills. He also recommends other development tools in addition to Postman, though specific recommendations are not mentioned. Despite his professional identity, there are still personal aspects of Jaggi that remain unknown to others.

Postman workspaces are designed to address collaboration and organizational challenges in API development by providing a centralized platform for managing API collections, environments, and other elements. Unlike traditional source control systems like Git, Postman offers real-time synchronization of changes, ensuring that all team members work with the latest versions of collections across various workspaces. These workspaces allow users to create customized environments, share resources while controlling permissions, and maintain a single source of truth for API projects. Teams can organize workspaces by function, project, or partner, which facilitates onboarding, improves clarity, and supports collaboration with external partners. Postman workspaces are flexible and can be tailored to individual or team workflows, enhancing efficiency and ensuring transparency in API development processes.

Healthwise, based in Boise, Idaho, focuses on enhancing healthcare quality by providing accessible health education and applications, thereby improving patient experiences and outcomes. To fulfill this mission, they utilize a suite of REST APIs that allow clients to access, deliver, and prescribe health content. Originally using Postman for internal API collaboration, Healthwise has expanded its use to include API documentation and acceptance testing, leveraging Postman Pro to create a unified "single source of truth" with shared collections across different environments. This approach ensures that internal and external customers remain informed of the latest updates, facilitating faster API integration. By exporting Postman collections to the OpenAPI format, Healthwise can generate flexible and accurate API documentation, which streamlines development processes. Additionally, they plan to enhance their API testing by using Postman collections for acceptance tests, which will further validate the accuracy of their documentation and reduce developer workload.

Quicktype is a free, open-source tool designed to simplify the process of generating model classes and serialization code in various programming languages from JSON sample data, particularly benefiting those working with APIs that lack documentation or client libraries. Co-created by David Siegel and Mark Probst, quicktype aims to make JSON parsing easier in typed languages, and it has integrated first-class support for Postman Collections to facilitate the automatic generation of perfect API models in languages like C#, TypeScript, Swift, C++, Go, and Java. This tool is particularly useful in API-first development approaches, allowing developers to mock endpoints and create model classes and helper functions from mock responses during the design phase. By using quicktype, developers can save time and effort by avoiding manual coding, as demonstrated with the Postman Echo sample collection, where quicktype generated Swift Codables for an iOS app, showcasing its ability to handle any Postman collection with response samples across multiple languages efficiently.

Monetary LLC, based in Denver, Colorado, is a payments processing company that provides a connected commerce platform specifically designed for Point-of-Sale (POS) developers and retailers, enabling enhanced consumer experiences and revenue growth through access to purchasing data. The platform features an easy-to-integrate API that facilitates payment, gift, loyalty, and data synchronization, thereby creating a targeted marketing tool for merchants. The company utilizes Postman Pro for API development and testing, running millions of monitoring requests monthly to ensure optimal performance and simulate customer behavior, while leveraging integrations with tools like Slack and PagerDuty for alerts. As an early-stage company in the payments industry, Monetary prioritizes PCI compliance and information security by adhering to best practices and using test data, with Postman serving as a key component in maintaining these standards without the need to build a proprietary solution.