A large-scale empirical assessment of web API size evolution
Informazioni aggiuntive
Autori
Di Lauro F.,
Serbout S.,
Pautasso C.
Tipo
Articolo pubblicato in rivista scientifica
Anno
2022
Lingua
Inglese
Sommario
Like any other type of software, also Web Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) evolve over time. In the case of widely used API, introducing changes is never a trivial task, because of the risk of breaking thousands of clients relying on the API. In this paper we conduct an empirical study over a large collection of OpenAPI descriptions obtained by mining open source repositories. We measure the speed at which Web APIs change and how changes affect their size, simply defined as the number of operations. The dataset of API descriptions was collected over a period of one year and includes APIs with histories spanning across up to 7 years of commits. The main finding is that APIs tend to grow, although some do reduce their size, as shown in the case study examples included in the appendix.
Parole chiave
Web API, API evolution, Software evolution, OpenAPI
Periodico
Journal of web engineering
Volume
21
Numero ( Mese )
6
Pagine (o numero dell’articolo)
1937–1980
Diffusione
Licenza
Diritti riservati
Visibilità
Pubblico
Status open access
Green
