The LRA Workbench: an IDE for efficient REST API composition through linked metadata
Abstract The number of Web APIs for accessing information and services is continuously increasing, and yet, no tools exist to automate the time-consuming and error-prone process of invoking those APIs and composing their responses. The recent emergence of widely-adopted, standardized, Web-API descri...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SpringerOpen
2021-09-01
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| Series: | Journal of Big Data |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-021-00504-z |
| _version_ | 1819063698288803840 |
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| author | Diego Serrano Eleni Stroulia |
| author_facet | Diego Serrano Eleni Stroulia |
| author_sort | Diego Serrano |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract The number of Web APIs for accessing information and services is continuously increasing, and yet, no tools exist to automate the time-consuming and error-prone process of invoking those APIs and composing their responses. The recent emergence of widely-adopted, standardized, Web-API description formats and the development of Linked Data technologies for data integration have motivated our work on the LRA (Linked REST APIs) methodology [1, 2]. LRA relies on RDF service specifications to automate the development process around the usage of Web APIs. This automation represents a great opportunity to systematize and improve the quality of service-oriented application development. However, LRA’s reliance on SPARQL as the user-interaction model may hinder its adoption, because it requires developers to learn the intricacies of the unconventional graph data model and its associated datasets. In this paper we have developed the LRA Workbench ( $$LRA_{Wbench}$$ L R A Wbench ), which takes advantage of the emergent schema of Web-API specifications, in order to simplify the formulation of LRA-compliant SPARQL queries. Our empirical evaluation of the $$LRA_{Wbench}$$ L R A Wbench usability demonstrates that our tool significantly improves the performance of developers formulating SPARQL queries for LRA. A subsequent study on the effectiveness of the $$LRA_{Wbench}$$ L R A Wbench demonstrated that developers using LRA tend to produce code with considerable better structural complexity, in less time, than developers manually composing APIs. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T15:18:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6afe08f1834246de96808ad0b0fc1bb8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2196-1115 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T15:18:48Z |
| publishDate | 2021-09-01 |
| publisher | SpringerOpen |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Big Data |
| spelling | doaj.art-6afe08f1834246de96808ad0b0fc1bb82022-12-21T18:59:05ZengSpringerOpenJournal of Big Data2196-11152021-09-018112610.1186/s40537-021-00504-zThe LRA Workbench: an IDE for efficient REST API composition through linked metadataDiego Serrano0Eleni Stroulia1Department of Computing Science, University of AlbertaDepartment of Computing Science, University of AlbertaAbstract The number of Web APIs for accessing information and services is continuously increasing, and yet, no tools exist to automate the time-consuming and error-prone process of invoking those APIs and composing their responses. The recent emergence of widely-adopted, standardized, Web-API description formats and the development of Linked Data technologies for data integration have motivated our work on the LRA (Linked REST APIs) methodology [1, 2]. LRA relies on RDF service specifications to automate the development process around the usage of Web APIs. This automation represents a great opportunity to systematize and improve the quality of service-oriented application development. However, LRA’s reliance on SPARQL as the user-interaction model may hinder its adoption, because it requires developers to learn the intricacies of the unconventional graph data model and its associated datasets. In this paper we have developed the LRA Workbench ( $$LRA_{Wbench}$$ L R A Wbench ), which takes advantage of the emergent schema of Web-API specifications, in order to simplify the formulation of LRA-compliant SPARQL queries. Our empirical evaluation of the $$LRA_{Wbench}$$ L R A Wbench usability demonstrates that our tool significantly improves the performance of developers formulating SPARQL queries for LRA. A subsequent study on the effectiveness of the $$LRA_{Wbench}$$ L R A Wbench demonstrated that developers using LRA tend to produce code with considerable better structural complexity, in less time, than developers manually composing APIs.https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-021-00504-zIntelligent web services and Semantic WebServices integration frameworkService-oriented architecture |
| spellingShingle | Diego Serrano Eleni Stroulia The LRA Workbench: an IDE for efficient REST API composition through linked metadata Journal of Big Data Intelligent web services and Semantic Web Services integration framework Service-oriented architecture |
| title | The LRA Workbench: an IDE for efficient REST API composition through linked metadata |
| title_full | The LRA Workbench: an IDE for efficient REST API composition through linked metadata |
| title_fullStr | The LRA Workbench: an IDE for efficient REST API composition through linked metadata |
| title_full_unstemmed | The LRA Workbench: an IDE for efficient REST API composition through linked metadata |
| title_short | The LRA Workbench: an IDE for efficient REST API composition through linked metadata |
| title_sort | lra workbench an ide for efficient rest api composition through linked metadata |
| topic | Intelligent web services and Semantic Web Services integration framework Service-oriented architecture |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-021-00504-z |
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