Between Platform and APIs: Kachako API for Developers

Different types of users require different functions in NLP software. It is difficult for a single platform to cover all types of users. When a framework aims to provide more interoperability, users are required to learn more concepts; users’ application designs are restricted to be compliant with the framework. While an interoperability framework is useful in certain cases, some types of users will not select the framework due to the learning cost and design restrictions. We suggest a rather simple framework for the interoperability aiming at developers. Reusing an existing NLP platform Kachako, we created an API oriented NLP system. This system loosely couples rich high-end functions, including annotation visualizations, statistical evaluations, annotation searching, etc. This API do not require users much learning cost, providing customization ability for power users while also allowing easy users to employ many GUI functions. 1