Comments on: 5 Reasons APIs Suck http://www.jeffheuer.com/blog/2008/09/5-reasons-apis-suck/ Strategy, User Experience, Code Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:27:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Ken http://www.jeffheuer.com/blog/2008/09/5-reasons-apis-suck/comment-page-1/#comment-255 Ken Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:27:25 +0000 http://www.jeffheuer.com/blog/?p=93#comment-255 API's do suck, and they suck hard. I have been working with the Amazon AWS API for the past year and knowing what I know today, I would never even use it. What Amazon's AWS has taught me: 1. API's can have ridiculous limits on traffic usage and requests. Someone can steal your API access key which is readily available in any url and you are screwed. 2. API's constantly change, and more often than not whatever version you are using is going to become obsolete and forced into retirement, making your site useless. 3. The documentation for API's is crap at best. Often times you will find yourself getting confused over conventions because of mistakes in the documentation examples which are using outdated examples 4. As you mentioned you are dependent on the API. This applies to anything really. Take advertising for example most sites are dependent on Google Adsense, once they give you the boot your site has lost all revenue. Same thing with a job, you are dependent on one job, if you get fired or laid off you need to find a new one. Overall, I will avoid complicated API's that take months to learn. If I use an API it will be for a minuscule part of my site that isn't detrimental to its success. I would never create a site that is dependent on one or more API's ever again. API’s do suck, and they suck hard. I have been working with the Amazon AWS API for the past year and knowing what I know today, I would never even use it.

What Amazon’s AWS has taught me:

1. API’s can have ridiculous limits on traffic usage and requests. Someone can steal your API access key which is readily available in any url and you are screwed.

2. API’s constantly change, and more often than not whatever version you are using is going to become obsolete and forced into retirement, making your site useless.

3. The documentation for API’s is crap at best. Often times you will find yourself getting confused over conventions because of mistakes in the documentation examples which are using outdated examples

4. As you mentioned you are dependent on the API. This applies to anything really. Take advertising for example most sites are dependent on Google Adsense, once they give you the boot your site has lost all revenue. Same thing with a job, you are dependent on one job, if you get fired or laid off you need to find a new one.

Overall, I will avoid complicated API’s that take months to learn. If I use an API it will be for a minuscule part of my site that isn’t detrimental to its success. I would never create a site that is dependent on one or more API’s ever again.

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