The Tipping Point in reusable Code
Open a software development magazine circa 1998 and you were bound to see a handful of articles focused on the the goal / vision / desire to reuse code. Even as a non-engineer, the fact that I was an entrepreneur and startup enthusiast based in Silicon Valley meant that I sat through dozens of technical presentations of passionate and sometimes brilliant software developers with ideas on how to reach this state of coding nirvana. Ok, that may be a bit much. But the basic concept was enough to inspire my cofounder and I to dream big build out some tools, with the goal of revolutionizing enterprise software development through social collaboration and code reuse. While we never reached our complete vision, we sold the company to Rational Software in its pre-IBM days, so we had some degree of success. But I digress…
There are multiple problems with the mobile application model from a technology standpoint (the business issues are an entirely different conversation), but one of the most time-consuming activities is the need to recreate common attributes within each app, and then keep them up to date with every revision on every platform. But that world seems to have become much simpler with Temboo.com’s app developer programming repository, allowing devs to access over 2000 code utilities, databases, and APIs – tapping into common services from Amazon, ZenDesk, YouTube, Twitter, Yahoo, and more. They’ve even begin adding open-source microcontroller hardware boards to their acumen, which are popular with hobbyists.
In a recent article in Entrepreneur Magazine, columnist John Patrick Pullen interviewed cofounders Trisala Chandaria and Jean-Baptiste Leonelli (within the not-yet-available-online section called Digital Disruption) about their goals, and about where the company is going next. How their solution helps app developers is by simplifying the time and effort needed to accomplish those common tasks, allowing them to focus on the novel concepts (the real intellectual property) within their apps. Pullen summarized the value of Temboo:
“Whether they (developers) want to enable an app to copy files to Dropbox or check payments via PayPal, incorporating choreos (short for choreographies) can turn the once-lengthy process into short, five-line pieces of code. As a result, programmers get tidier software. And when an online service makes a change to its API, Tembo adjusts the code on the back end – a huge time-saver that eliminates one of the biggest headaches for developers: constant updates.”
Understandably, growth of the company has been exponential. You can find more on Temboo in the Fast Company article This Killer New Service Lets You Connect To Any Popular API–Without Wrappers
