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I received this one today and I would assume by the wording and hint that the question may be leading towards API as the correct answer but it specifically seems to be related to Hardware which would rather suggest Device Drivers.

API’s are usually defines as app-to-app programming interfaces.

Is it ambiguous? what do others think?

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https://community.spiceworks.com/questions/4833/explanation?source=dashboard

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I think all the references to hardware make the answer pretty clear.

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Agreed but drivers tend to communicate with the OS, so the hint about software developers seems a bit off at a tangent and may lead some people to choose API

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So I got it wrong and my summation above was correct.

Having a sh1t year so far.

@josh-j-spiceworks ​ @david-k-spiceworks ​

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I’ve actually got this one on my to-do list already, as I got this question myself a few days ago. I do think the term API has developed a connotation of software-software more than software-hardware over the past decade, but I do agree with the author that this is technically correct.

I’m tagging @ryandornan ​ (the author) for their take on this, but I am leaning towards removing the device driver option as an available answer at the moment. Anyone have a good suggestion for an alternative incorrect answer?

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Too late for me then.

I think mentioning devices in the question and hardware components in the hint is misleading people to choose Device Driver, especially older IT career people like myself.

Even though I could sense it was leading to API I chose what I thought was technically correct.

Perhaps the question could be re-worded as:

“Which term refers to a standardized interface that enables communication between different software applications (and some hardware devices)?”

I would leave out the part “regardless…”.

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I didn’t have an issue with this question. The “regardless” but made it clear it wasn’t Device Driver, and the other 2 wrong options are clearly not what’s being asked for.

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I did get this question “correct” due to the “regardless of specific application or hardware” part of the question but I was otherwise leaning heavily towards selecting “Device Driver” and partially disagree with the question. Yes, technically APIs do “enable communication between devices and software” but they rely on device drivers to do so.
Perhaps I am wrong and relying too much on outdated information, but it’s my understanding that ALL hardware uses drivers to communicate with an OS/firmware and then software use an API to communicate with the OS or firmware and then use said drivers to interface with the hardware. In theory, this should be true, even for IoT devices (like smart light bulbs & switches). In no situation should an API directly interface with hardware without the OS or firmware.
Again, it’s possible I may be mistaken and I welcome any documentation that proves me wrong. (Note: Failure to mention drivers does not exclude their existence.)

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I would have chosen Device Driver. The first result of a quick search “define API” says “a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other”. The use of the word “devices” in the question makes it misleading when “device driver” is an option.

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Stating “regardless of the specific application or hardware being used” makes Device driver wrong, device drivers are device specific, so don’t meet the “regardless” criteria of the question.

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I interpreted that as “the hardware doesn’t matter”, which would be the same for a device driver or an API - it is abstracting the underlying device of software, and providing a standardized method of communication. Otherwise you could make the same argument for an API (that it is specific to whatever you are trying to communicate with).

@kenny-milne ​

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Let’s say you want to create a software application that can control a variety of different printers. You could write a separate piece of code for each printer, but this would be very time-consuming and error-prone. Instead, you could use an API that provides a standardized way to control printers. This would allow you to write a single piece of code that can control all of the printers, regardless of their manufacturer or model.

APIs can save developers a lot of time and effort, and they can also help to ensure that software is compatible with a wider range of hardware components. As a result, APIs are becoming increasingly popular in the world of software development.

Here are some other examples of how APIs can be used to build software that can work with various hardware components:
An API can be used to control a webcam.
An API can be used to read data from a sensor.
An API can be used to control a motor.
An API can be used to connect to a database.

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This is true but the API would still require drivers to interface with the hardware. In your example of the printers, the one API would in fact be able to manage multiple printers but every single printer being managed still needs a driver to be able to communicate properly with the host. Though they do greatly simplify things for application programmers, the API doesn’t communicate directly to the hardware nor does it replace the need for drivers.

Granted, this may come down mostly to semantics but at the same time semantics often plays a critical role in many aspects of IT.

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Device Driver:

A device driver is software that sits between a hardware device and the operating system.

Drivers allow generic instructions from software applications to be turned into specific instructions for that particular hardware device.

Application Programming Interface:

API stands for Application Programming Interface. In the context of APIs, the word Application refers to any software with a distinct function. Interface can be thought of as a contract of service between two applications. This contract defines how the two communicate with each other using requests and responses.

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I totally get where you’re coming from, and I do agree that, particularly over the past decade, the term API has the connotation of being communication between 2 applications, but it has historically also been used for an application to talk to a device in a way that a driver doesn’t (along the lines of Microcontrollers and SOCs that have GPIO, particularly the I in GPIO :grin:, or like the printer example above where different device drivers support “speaking” the same API to standardize control over different devices) so I also get where @ryandornan is coming from.

I do think there’s enough community sentiment about this to warrant removing the device driver option and/or rewording the question slightly. I’m open to suggestions for both, but will come up with a stand-in answer to replace device driver tonight and replace it.

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I agree that removing “Device Driver” from the list of options would be a sufficient fix to this question.

An API can technically “enable communications between devices and software”, even if it relies on device drivers (which also fulfill that description) to do so.

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I’ve (at least temporarily) changed the Device Driver answer to “IDE (Integrated Development Environment)”

I’m still very open to a better wrong answer if anyone has one, though :slight_smile:

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Sounds good to me!

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Thanks for not just deleting my question and moving on!
I think another good wrong answer instead of device driver could be ‘USB (universal serial bus)’. It is a misleading standardized interface that enables communication between devices.

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I think it’s a good question, it just had a controversial answer :slight_smile:

I’d always prefer to keep questions and modify them rather than delete them where feasible.

I thought about putting something like USB, but I feel like we’d run into a similar issue with those that we do with device driver. One could argue that it is a standardized interface that allows software and hardware to communicate. I’m curious to see what Glen and Brian might think about that one, though.

One thing that I like to try to keep in mind with these questions is that there are a lot of folks taking them who don’t speak/read English as their native language, so if I (as a native speaker) can see how someone might interpret an incorrect answer as the correct one, there’s a good chance that a non-native speaker would have a much more difficult time with that question.

Also, just in general, this community tends to really dislike trick questions, intentionally misleading answers, and the typical standardized/certification test trope of “pick the most correct answer.” :slight_smile:

@ryandornan

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