Testing APIs: the key to offering customers a better product

Joaquín Engelmo, testing developer at Tuenti and event organizer at theEvnt, tells us of the importance of testing for companies. Testing offers benefits to developers by giving them quick feedback on how what they do affects system performance.
3 min reading
Innovation / 24 August 2018
Testing APIs: the key to offering customers a better product
Testing APIs: the key to offering customers a better product

BBVA API Market

Joaquín Engelmo, testing developer at Tuenti and event organizer at theEvnt, tells us of the importance of testing for companies. Testing offers benefits to developers by giving them quick feedback on how what they do affects system performance.

What does testing bring to companies?

Testing offers benefits to developers by giving them quick feedback on how what they do affects system performance. It also brings benefits at product and customer level by leading to fewer errors in production, which affects both user experience and the financial aspect. Testing helps you offer customers the best product possible.

Tests act above all as a safety net during the development process. They allow the existing code to be developed and adapted to change in a more secure way, because you can see when any changes you have introduced break the current functionality.

What types of testing tend to be used?

We tend to use models with different approaches and contributions. The aim is to enter production with the smallest number of errors.

Personally, I follow a test distribution and categorization system called “the test pyramid”:

How does the world of testing relate to APIs?

Most applications now interact with APIs, whether proprietary or third-party. As systems evolve continuously, it is essential to have a mechanism that can check whether a system is affected by changes in the APIs it uses, and that is where the tests come into play.

Writing tests that check whether an API behaves as expected in our system is essential to ensure correct integration. If an API varies its behavior, our tests will detect it and we can adapt our code to these variations.

Why do you think that companies going for APIs?

I think it is because they allow them to evolve and adapt according to the market situation. Companies that use them gain competitive advantages, offer new functionalities or change the way in which they offer their services. It is like a representation of real-world interactions in the digital world.

As a developer, what are the main challenges you face?

The main challenge is to develop a service that is highly available, scalable, and offers a great user experience. In addition, when there is a problem, it is essential to provide a good customer experience with a high response and problem detection capacity, capable of isolating the problems and providing a quick and easy solution.

In terms of the profession of developer in general, the greatest challenge is to be up-to-date with technologies, programming languages, new methodologies, etc. It is a quickly changing environment where you always have to be learning and improving; and you have to be capable of contributing value to the community that exists around the software.

In your opinion, what strategies have to be followed today in the world of technology?

I am in favor of a “lean mentality”, where the aim is to launch viable technologies from the start, even though you may not have all the desired functionalities available; allowing products to be used as soon as possible so you can get feedback quickly and are able to improve them. The goal is to ensure a balance between functionality and good service.

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