Opinionated API insights for enterprise tech leaders seeking to supercharge their digital strategy (and unlearn what they've been sold about transformation). Authored by Matthew Reinbold.
Your mature, production APIs aren't actually well-documented. Chances are your human devs have gotten good at compensating for what the docs fail to say. And AI knows it. Net API Notes for 2026/07/30, Issue 261
AI is being sold as relief from impossible productivity demands, but in exhausted software organizations it often deepens the problems it claims to solve. Craft to throughput, SaaS to org dependency, and work into value extraction - is this what we want? Net API Notes for 2026/06/05, Issue 260
Stack Overflow turned programming into a shared conversation. AI turns it into a private loop. The answers are faster and more tailored—but something essential may be getting lost in the process. Net API Notes for 2026/04/30, Issue 259.
Progress in any craft rarely looks like a revolution. Progress happens when we stop demanding adherence and start talking about what we owe each other. It’s lonely work, and one made harder by the coming cognitive debt crisis. Net API Notes for 2026/03/17, Issue 258.
What does a license plate scan, a REST API, and a knock on someone’s door have in common? In Minneapolis, they’ve become one in the same. Net API Notes for 2026/02/03, Issue 257.
API leaders will chase a "definitive" standards policy but software systems behave like coastlines: the closer you look, the more edges appear. This edition shows how "complete" standards backfire and why healthier practice starts by choosing a useful scale. Net API Notes for 2025/12/16, Issue 256
Most API programs don’t fail for lack of standards; they fade from lack of belonging. In this edition, I explain why sustaining API community engagement takes more than process and policy. Turn a calendar invite into a calling. Net API Notes for 2025/11/18, Issue 255
This year, the rash of cost optimization and benefit rationalization conversations happening across industries has platform owners on their heels. So I made a presentation about it.
Writing the API standard is the easy part. Defending it when the first tough questions hit? That’s the real test. This piece includes the story of a working group that stumbled when faced with legitimate pushback, and what they could have done instead. Net API Notes for 2025/08/28, Issue 254
Dark Sky is gone. NOAA continues to be cut. And yet, one guy rebuilt a weather API used by 40K+ devs & 80M+ requests/month *in his spare time*. This is a story about resilience, infrastructure, and kindness as punk rock. Net API Notes for 2025/07/15, Issue 253
Net API Notes for 2025/06/18, Issue 252
Net API Notes for 2025/05/13, Issue 251
Net API Notes for 2025-04-29, Issue 250
Net API Notes for 2025/03/13, Issue 249
Net API Notes for 2025/02/11, Issue 248