Translating interfaces have disruptive potential, and, in some cases, standardizing translating interfaces can lead to powerful synergies. They have led to industrialization and interchangeable parts. Translating interface standards are written by teams of people who understand both sides of the interface.

     Consider: all the technologies in the Personal Computer, connecting the disciplines of software to hardware down to semiconductor physics.

     Consider: the APIs of Mac and Windows, which led to an application explosion

     This picture of the Shanghai container port, the world’s largest by volume, is a study in standardized translating interfaces. The more you look, the more different kinds of objects you see that need to interoperate, from cardboard cartons to shipping containers to trucks to ships. All that interoperation is possible because of standardized translating interfaces.