Blog post
Mobile developers often say they hate parsing response data from a server because data is not specifically made for a mobile app and they have to make extra effort to simply provide data to their shiny application. Each coin has two sides, so mobile developers need to understand that the mobile app is just one part (client) of the system and the server has to satisfy all the clients and their needs.
That is where JSON:API (www.jsonapi.org) comes in handy. It is a specification for building APIs in JSON - it defines how a client should create, modify or request resources and how a server should respond to those requests. You can discuss whether it is overkill for your app, or whether you like it or not, but it does the job! And it does it great. Especially for complex systems where convention makes collaboration easier. You can take advantage of generalized tooling for every client, and focus on what matters: your application. That is why we developed and open sourced Izzy Parser (https://github.com/undabot/izzyparser-ios), a JSON:API library - to increase productivity and to provide a parsing solution for many iOS developers. You are probably wondering why we didn’t use some of the existing implementations.
We weren’t 100% satisfied with the existing solutions - we wanted better performance, so we decided to invest some time and develop an in-house solution in order to achieve performance and productivity boost. It suits all the projects that we are working on. I’m not saying our library is the best you are going to find on GitHub, it depends on your needs. I’m saying that we developed something that satisfies our project needs and you should also try it, if it suits you.
We use open source libraries in our projects, so we wanted to do our part and contribute to the community. Producing meaningful and useful software gives us personal satisfaction. Contributing to the community is also the thing that makes us happy.
We are dedicated to maintaining this library and giving our best to help the developers who are using it. We tend to evolve and we like to see how our projects evolve.
The library (https://github.com/undabot/izzyparser-ios) is referenced on https://jsonapi.org/implementations/#client-libraries-ios. Use it, contribute and feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions. We like feedback and we believe there is no bad feedback, it just depends on what your actions after feedback are. So please, feel free to comment.
Many thanks to the Undabot iOS team.
