Streamlining Frontend Development: A Developer’s Journey with Requestly at PingSafe

In our recent chat with Harsh Vats from PingSafe, we got the lowdown on how he came across Requestly, and it turns out, it’s been a real game-changer for him. Harsh gave us his valuable insights on how Requestly has made life easier by getting rid of the need to hardcode API responses in the source code. Join us as we dive into Harsh’s experience and uncover how Requestly is simplifying the way developers handle API responses.

Can you tell us about PingSafe

PingSafe is a Cloud Security Platform with solutions to secure your multi-cloud infrastructure.

What is your role at PingSafe?

I am a frontend engineer at PingSafe. My main work revolves around developing and implementing new features on the frontend site, ensuring enhanced user experience

What Problems did you face before Requestly?

The main issue I faced during development was the uncertainty surrounding backend updates. As a frontend developer, I often encountered situations where the backend API wasn’t ready and would take some time before I could start using it. So I had to hardcode mock data in the source code which was kind of a hassle to do and prone to errors as I can forget to remove the mock data from the code before committing.

How did you discover Requestly?

One day while waiting for updates from the back-end team, I turned to Google for a solution and stumbled upon Requestly’s Modify API response feature. I immediately recognized its potential to solve my problem with hard coding responses directly into the code base.

How easy was it to get started with Requestly?

Getting started with Requestly was quite straightforward. The design is intuitive, and I found what I needed right away. The HTTP rules tab on the left side caught my eye, and with the option to create new rules, I quickly grasped the concept of modifying responses based on specific conditions like strings or endpoints.

What’s the impact of using Requestly? What does it save you?

The use of Requestly has simplified my development process a lot, particularly in terms of time management and testing robustness. With Requestly, I’ve effectively reduced the risk of accidentally committing mock code. This streamlined approach not only enhances my workflow but also minimizes the occurrence of troubleshooting headaches. On average, Requestly saves me around 15 minutes per endpoint, allowing me to allocate more time to productive tasks. Moreover, Requestly enables me to conduct thorough testing by simulating various status codes and response bodies.

Why Requestly? What would you do otherwise?

Before using Requestly, my alternative approach involved hard-coding in the frontend code. I used to incorporate sleep functions and timers in JavaScript to simulate delays and then send dummy responses. However, I found this approach cumbersome and time-consuming, especially when making changes to the response handling logic. Hard-coding required checking success and failure scenarios, and it made the code less clean. With Requestly, I can focus solely on modifying responses without the need to tinker with the code, making the entire process more efficient and straightforward.