Jon Pretty

Even better, with a good API you can build as many glossy UIs as you want, all of them using that API to perform actual work.

We do hear that enterprises favor that, but I suspect that it's marketing folk who are selling into enterprises that we hear it from. Why? Because it looks good in sales collateral.

Maybe that entreprises have not necessarily the time, or money, or need to build themselves the tools around those APIs? How many companies have automated their Github org management through Github API for example, which is a rather stable API ?

I think it’s basically fashion and status. Enterprises have the resources to put into such things and investors /shareholders like to see nice glossy sites. I find quite a lot of modern web sites are functionally unusable though, so expect the fashion to change...

Glossy UIs sell software and not just in just a monetary sense. I typically build the network/process protocol first, then the CLI and finally the GUI. The CLI ends up being used the most, but the GUI comes out for demoes.