February 2019 Summaries

Shea and Kirby, both based in Columbus, Ohio, are contributing to the expansion efforts of ReadMe, a company focused on spreading its reach. Shea, who recently returned to Columbus after residing in Austin, Texas, enjoys walking his large dog, supporting Ohio State's Buckeyes, and exploring local pizza places and art exhibits. Meanwhile, Kirby, originally from Boston but a Columbus resident since 2011, has a distinctive accent that emerges in certain situations, and she shares her home with a playful rescue cat named Peewee, who is known for disrupting her phone charging routine.

OpenAPI Specification (OAS) or Swagger offers a standardized method for documenting APIs, allowing for consistency across different tools and reducing the need for companies to create unique standards. Keeping OAS files aligned with actual API functionality is crucial to ensure user satisfaction, which can be achieved through automatic generation from code rather than manual editing. ReadMe addresses this by providing a tool called swagger-inline that uses code comments to document APIs, generating OAS files directly from these comments. This approach helps maintain up-to-date documentation by integrating swagger-inline into npm scripts for automatic file generation and validation, thus simplifying the process of hosting or sharing API documentation. While this method isn't flawless due to the potential for outdated comments, it is generally effective, and future improvements may include auto-generating full definitions by combining express routes and mongoose models.

After several months of development and numerous iterations, the updated version of ReadMe.io's homepage has been launched, marking a significant change after nearly five years of minor tweaks. Over this period, the company has experienced substantial growth, expanding from 2 to 11 employees, moving offices twice, and increasing its revenue more than tenfold, while also introducing a new product, API Metrics, which is prominently featured on the new homepage. The redesign was supported by design contributions from Staff Only and Madison Yocum, along with copywriting from Joel Klettke, and the team is eager to receive feedback on the new release.