Context is important: we are contextual beingsFoundation series - Tenet 5

This is a point we really care of, so be ready for a lengthier read.

Nowadays, we are literally drowning in a sea of tools: productivity tools, collaboration tools, communication tools, tools tools and tools. From the start, developers are told to follow the mainstream idea in their company to use company tools: join the Discord or Slack channels, gets an access to the company knowledge base, connect this tool with that tool so they can work in concert, and so on.

This fact shapes all that comes afterward, and that is the source of a big issue in modern virtual workplaces:scattering of attention and loss of context.

We need focus, a deep focus. That means not having to context switch from writing code or designing something to search in the knowledge base a memo about how this part of application is designed and what the customer originally wanted. That means not having to scroll up that Slack conversation back to 6 months ago to get the details about a given team decision on a specific implementation. That means, not having to learn all these as a newly on-boarded team member, yes people come and go.

Ideas and conventions should stay, be easily found, and kept in the right place. If you deal with APIs, you want all the contextual content that comes with these APIs to be found where you play with these APIs. Not the other way, not on that Slack thread of 2 years ago where you didn't even participate, not in that technical specification document that you are not even aware of that you need to ask senior members of the team.

If you need to know the context of a API endpoint or a set of API endpoints collective behavior, you want to find that where they are defined.

In Apidojo, we aim to achieve that, even if it's a continuous work in progress: it's tough to swim upstream. Inside Apidojo, all your notes and documentations and conversations can be done in the right context, from generic ones like platform usage instruction and sandboxing best practices, to the very specific context of an individual endpoint or sandbox scenario design choice.