When I started this career, 11 years ago, I had to test everything manually. Every time, for every change, I had to do a custom script or create the Frontend to test my change in the Backend. You spent more time making a simple change to the testing part than you did on the code itself. We don’t want to spend hours testing something or creating our manual script to do the testing for us. As developers, we want to build robust and scalable applications, and we want to have efficient tools at our disposal to do the work more easily and efficiently. So today, I will talk about why I believe that POSTMAN is part of the tools that you need to use.
- API Requests
Thanks to his clear interface, we can easily create API requests by specifying various parameters, headers, and payloads. This significantly reduces the time and effort that we need to create requests manually using command-line tools, like Curl, or custom scripts.
Also, for the oldies like me who still like to, from time to time, do a script or curl in our terminal Postman allows us to convert the request into code snippets in several languages.
2. Testing Postman allows us to automate testing scripts, we can ensure that our APIs are functioning as expected, catching potential bugs or inconsistencies early in the development process. This helps us to deliver more reliable and stable software.
3. Collaboration In modern software development, collaboration is key. POSTMAN helps us to share collections of API requests, scripts, and test suites with our team members. This ensures that everyone is on the same page, reduces misunderstandings, and facilitates smoother teamwork.
4. Documentation Clear and up-to-date documentation is essential for any API. POSTMAN can automatically generate documentation based on the API requests and responses defined within the tool. This documentation is both human-readable and machine-readable, making it easier for us and our team to understand and work with APIs.
5. Mock server POSTMAN’s mock server feature is a game-changer for us. It enables them to simulate API responses without having the actual backend implemented. This is especially useful when working in teams, as frontend developers can start building interfaces that rely on APIs even before the backend is fully ready.
6. Environment Managing different environments is a challenge that developers face every day and sometimes could have consequences if we mistakenly use the wrong environment in our manual scripts. POSTMAN simplifies this by allowing developers to create and switch between environments effortlessly. This ensures that API requests are sent to the correct endpoints, headers are appropriately set, and variables are managed effectively.
7. CI/CD POSTMAN’s capabilities extend beyond its user interface. It offers a command-line tool and an API that we can use to integrate POSTMAN into our CI/CD pipelines. This enables automated testing and deployment of APIs, leading to quicker and more reliable software releases. Conclusion By incorporating POSTMAN into your workflow, you can deliver more reliable software products. Accepting POSTMAN is not just a choice; it’s a strategy that you can use to create quality and fast code without having to worry about introducing unexpected bugs to the code.