Download - Jesse Emery, Your Trove
Slide 1
10/19/2011
Why Your API SucksBusiness of APIs Conference, NY, 10/19/2011
An API developer survey opens Pandoras Boxhttp://bit.ly/trove-survey-results
Jesse Emery, Co-Founderwww.yourtrove.com
[email protected]@ejesse
#apisuck1
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We did a survey on API PainIt made some waves
You can view it here:
http://bit.ly/trove-survey-results
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Facebook Wins Worst API in Developer Survey- TechCrunch
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Developers relate a tale of woe with Facebook's API
- The Inquirer
Developer survey finds Facebook has the worst API- ZD Net
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Booooring
Its no real secret that Facebooks API is widely loathed
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Developers Hate Your API
Every integration is its own [expletive-deleted] adventure.
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APIs dont live in a vacuum
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APIs dont live in a vacuum
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different idiosyncrasies, ie rate limiting, terms of service, data format, old documentation etc.
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REST vs. XML-RPC vs. SOAP,JSON vs. XML vs. Random POST data.Every API seems to be different
REST uses the HTTP spec, but few API providers actually follow the spec properly.
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Guarantee me that any API you support will exist in its current form
(bugs and all!) for at least 12 months, and I will give you so much
fucking money.
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Guarantee me that any API you support will exist in its current form (bugs and all!) for at least 12 months,
and I will give you
so much fucking 11
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Where else are you losing Developers $$$?!
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Your Documentation Sucks
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poor documentation mentioned 41 times
lack of good examples + sandboxes
Documentation and examples. Give me those, keep them up to date and Im happy.
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Y U No Update Documentation?????
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Your Error Handling andTest Environments Suck
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error handling a frequent complaint
Complete lack of test environments.
The ones that you cant test from a localhost suck
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We suck more together
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Inconsistent standards, libraries, and documentation
Change is good, but change when it breaks existing 3rd party APIs is a nightmare.
REST vs. XML-RPC vs. SOAP,JSON vs. XML vs. Random POST data.Every API seems to be different
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We suck more together
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Random 3rd party outages that take you out as well
Different data formats from different services for essentially the same data.
Error Codes differ between services.On bad Auth, Some 404, others 401 or 403.
And some 500. This is hell on devs.
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Authentication vs. Authorization
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Oh do developers hate OAuth(users, too!)
Actually getting through to stakeholders (thats YOU)
And theres so much other confusion
Rate limiting and billing
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Paypal. Sweet god, fuck paypal. OMFG Salesforce API sucks. That is all
Were still working on it.
Netsuite SOAPs documentation is, umm completely fucking incorrect
Affiliate + API almost no one does it
right.
Digg is basically a giant example of this is how to not
do it.
Too many to relate.
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So lets solve this. Together.
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More frequent and open communications
Were not in a vacuum!
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Humbleness
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You might be awesome, but together we make a shitty team
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Documentation-Driven DesignSimply: Write and review documentation first, then write code
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Standards and best practices
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Developer Bill of Rights
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What can they expect from ALL of us?
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Hold our own accountable
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Better APIs = Happier Developers = Happier Customers = more $$$
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Recap
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Were not in this alone
We need to start thinking like team players
Cooperation amongst ourselves makes developers lives easier
Which means better adoption, retention, and revenue
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Your Business is NOT your API. It is what that API provides access to.
So fix your API and the ecosystem around it!
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Thank you #BAPI!
http://bit.ly/trove-survey-results
Jesse Emery, Co-Founderwww.yourtrove.com
[email protected]@ejesse
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