This year we published over 235 blog posts in 2018 with insights gleaned from our incredible developer community, partners, and customers. Our content covered a wide range of content—from APIs versus web services to common API design mistakes to deploying a Mule application with a Maven and Jenkins pipeline. Here are the eight most popular blog posts in 2018.
#1: APIs versus web services
What is the difference between web APIs and web services? Let’s start off with an analogy: all tigers are cats but not all cats are tigers. In a similar way, all web services are APIs, but not all APIs are web services. Web APIs and web services are often confused with each other; however, web APIs are an evolution of web services. Both facilitate information transfer, but web APIs are more dynamic than web services are.
Find out why in the full post, APIs versus web services.
#2: Fundamental principles of microservices design
There are several intrinsic benefits to microservices. Positioning services as valuable assets to the business implicitly promotes them as adaptable for use in multiple contexts. Additionally, the same service can deliver its capabilities to more than one business process or over different business channels or digital touchpoints.
Check out the post, six fundamental principles of microservice design.
#3: How to deploy a Mule application with a Maven and Jenkins pipeline
Mule applications and deployments can be fully managed using Maven. In the development phase, Anypoint Studio makes it easy to manage your application dependencies using Maven. For Deployment tasks, Mule provides a Maven plugin that helps automate the application deployment to different target runtime environments such as Standalone, CloudHub, ARM, Cluster, and more.
Check out the how-to guide, How to deploy a Mule application with a Maven and Jenkins pipeline.
#4: Introducing the new MuleSoft Certified Developer certification
At MuleSoft, we are dedicated to providing the latest training and resources to our community of managers, developers, architects, administrators, and IT professionals. As part of this, we released the MuleSoft Certified Developer (MCD) – Integration and API Associate exam, just one example of the extensive training we offer. The certification validates that developers that are new to MuleSoft (less than 6 months of experience) are ready to work on projects with guidance and supervision.
Learn more about becoming a MuleSoft Certified Developer.
#5: 10 ways Mule 4 will make your life easier
Seamless access to data, error handling features, repeatable streaming, and triggers are just a few examples of how Mule 4 has made our customers’ lives easier.
Check out these 10 quick examples of Mule 4 features in action!
#6: 3 common API design mistakes and how to overcome them
“When you are building APIs, think about how people use it. We call it API design, but we tend to think like engineers,” said Jason Harmon, head of APIs at engaging forms tool Typeform, and namesake of the JSON schema. “Have some empathy for the people that are going to use it. And when you really do this you can figure out quickly the problems ahead of time.”
Check out 3 common API design mistakes and how to overcome them for Harmon’s top advice.
#7: What is a Center for Enablement (C4E)
The larger a company becomes, and the more technology projects it initiates, the more complexity and fragmentation arises in both business processes and the technology landscape. To deal with this difficult environment, companies often introduce rigorous management and control processes, but these can become overly rigid and calcify innovation and agility.
Here’s how a Center for Enablement (C4E) allows companies to introduce processes and manage change to make sure that IT projects don’t proliferate in the shadows.
#8: Introducing the new MuleSoft developer quick start guides
Earlier this year we announced the new MuleSoft developer quick start guides to help developers understand Anypoint Platform and implement typical integration patterns easier than ever. The new guides highlight important details to keep in mind when using the platform, such as common pitfalls, code snippets, and more tips that help you fully utilize the platform.
Check out the post on MuleSoft developer quick start guides to learn how to wield the platform and gain a meaningful understanding on how to achieve success with your own projects.
We’ve got tons of new HowTos, thought leadership, and community announcements for you in 2019. Comment below for suggested topics on content you would like to learn more about and see you in the new year!
