Comments on: the Web developers LEGO http://mathys.vanabbe.com/the-web-developers-lego/ connecting the dot(com)s Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:26:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: 500+ developers using the Mobypicture APIs – Mathys van Abbe http://mathys.vanabbe.com/the-web-developers-lego/#comment-2736 500+ developers using the Mobypicture APIs – Mathys van Abbe Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:07:18 +0000 http://mathys.vanabbe.com/?p=80#comment-2736 [...] developers using the Mobypicture APIscredits: Rob CottinghamI love APIs! It is like playing with Lego.That’s why I’m also really proud that last friday, we celebrated the 500th API [...] [...] developers using the Mobypicture APIscredits: Rob CottinghamI love APIs! It is like playing with Lego.That’s why I’m also really proud that last friday, we celebrated the 500th API [...]

]]> By: David Bentolila http://mathys.vanabbe.com/the-web-developers-lego/#comment-867 David Bentolila Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:30:13 +0000 http://mathys.vanabbe.com/?p=80#comment-867 Good post. However, it still seems like some developers are reluctant to build applications on them (APIs) since many platform vendors have this nasty habit of not making newer versions of their APIs backward compatible; breaking applications that already exist on older versions. Historically, Facebook isn’t the only site guilty of this (to be fair I don't know to what extent this is still a problem in their case). Amazon and Google are other API providers who have, on the sudden release of new and backward incompatible versions of their services in the past, caused developers to scramble to rescue their applications from the hands of vagrant APIs! However, when we have more APIs being pushed to market a larger service, just like Microsoft has been doing with its video streaming services, we should have more stable APIs. I'd like to see much more flexibility and backwards-compatibility and I think then we'll see APIs properly fulfilling their purpose. Good post. However, it still seems like some developers are reluctant to build applications on them (APIs) since many platform vendors have this nasty habit of not making newer versions of their APIs backward compatible; breaking applications that already exist on older versions.

Historically, Facebook isn’t the only site guilty of this (to be fair I don’t know to what extent this is still a problem in their case). Amazon and Google are other API providers who have, on the sudden release of new and backward incompatible versions of their services in the past, caused developers to scramble to rescue their applications from the hands of vagrant APIs!

However, when we have more APIs being pushed to market a larger service, just like Microsoft has been doing with its video streaming services, we should have more stable APIs. I’d like to see much more flexibility and backwards-compatibility and I think then we’ll see APIs properly fulfilling their purpose.

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