Comments on: Making Your Webservice More Developer Friendly

By: Developer Friendly APIs | MK Partners

Developer Friendly APIs | MK Partners — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:02:27 +0000

[...] a great post by Alex Lucas at CallingShotgun.net about what companies can do to make their API’s more [...]

By: iDVB

iDVB — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:52:09 +0000

I’m new to developing my own Open API for a Web App though not new to development in general.
I’ve a few questions that I seem to run around in circles with and never get anywhere:
1) What is a good model for developing a robust open web API that is also secure?
2) Do sites usually use their own API for the site or is there a better way?
3) What is the REAL difference between SOAP, REST and XML-RPC.

Currently I have an XML-RPC implementation that is NOT secure. I’m wondering if there is a way to secure it and to create an API using XML-RPC. Or even if that is possible. I’ve used Flickr’s api before…what are they doing?

Thanks,
D

By: links for 2009-01-13 | I’ve Said Too Much

links for 2009-01-13 | I’ve Said Too Much — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:47:49 +0000

[...] Making Your Webservice More Developer Friendly | Calling Shotgun AOL Pictures API was little more than “Look at us, we have an API!” lipservice. There’s no way to programmatically log-in and access private pictures, there’s no way to upload via the API, and the system for returning information about those pictures was unintuitive bordering on useless. The API should be a programmatic reflection of what your web service is capable of. (tags: api development) [...]

By: Sérgio Santos

Sérgio Santos — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 23:23:29 +0000

Great list of important tips for web APIs. I raised this issue on the very same day as you curiously (see link). Thank you for sharing.

By: TigerMunky

TigerMunky — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:38:21 +0000

Awesome post Alex (de man), thank you for sharing your experience, I know this post will come in handy, I’ll let you know when I release an API in the future, maybe you could be my biggest crit?

Like your style man, like your title.. “API Documentation: People actually read it”, hehe.

Thanks again for helping me help you. ; )

By: Naveed Anwar

Naveed Anwar — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 07:56:37 +0000

Alex thanks for writing the article. When we released the API in Oct 2006 our intention was to make it full scale API, but based on where the direction of the product was heading we decided not to invest further into the service. Just to let you know we sunset the AOL Pictures product and API on 12/31/2008. We would be more than happy to talk to you on the other services and API’s we offer on dev.aol.com. You have my contact details. Please keep publishing articles like this so we can improve on our service.

By: Dadblog » links for 2009-01-13

Dadblog » links for 2009-01-13 — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:01:41 +0000

By: Simon Gianoutsos

Simon Gianoutsos — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:44:15 +0000

Thanks Alex for this great post. As somebody who only plays around with development now and again, the more that APIs can be built in a consistent manner so that the likes of myself can easily pick them up and do something useful with them the better. The Twitter API I found to be great in terms of simplicity and being well documented.

By: How To Make Your Web Service More Developer Friendly

How To Make Your Web Service More Developer Friendly — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:06:16 +0000

[...] programs, look no further than a very insightful blog post from mashup developer Alexander Lucas on Making Your Webservice More Developer Friendly (Alex is the creator of Migratr a useful desktop mashup that uses APIs from 11 different web [...]

By: Don Stewart

Don Stewart — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:38:42 +0000

Oh, Flickr already knows. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/yws-flickr/message/4524