Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and without sneering teach the rest to sneer - Pope
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Developers relate a tale of woe with Facebook's API
THE SOCIAL NETWORK Facebook is doing a bad job when it comes to its application programming interface (API), according to a survey of developers.
Facebook's API allows third party developers to create applications that Facebook users can interact with. It is often cited as one of the major driving forces that increased the popularity and more importantly the time users spend on the firm's website. However, according to a survey, developers complained about Facebook's API more than any others.
In the survey one developer said of Facebook, "They release half-baked stuff that doesn't work, shut down existing functionality without replacing it, and never document anything correctly." Others claimed poor documentation and repeatedly cited Facebook's rapidly changing API as a source of headaches.
Google didn't fare much better, though, with respondents mentioning Google's Buzz API as a problem and the fact that Google's recently launched social network, Google+ doesn't even have an API.
On the whole documentation was identified as the biggest issue for developers. It is a sad fact that even though would-be developers are taught the benefits of good documentation, the well paid developers at Facebook and Google seem to forget that others have to work with their coding decisions and documentation.
Although APIs are important parts of applications development, it is clear that the web's big brands need to work with third party developers in order to help them code applications that generate revenues for both sides. Developers should have a right to expect that this report will serve as a wake-up call to companies like Facebook and Google to up their games. µ
Tags: Software
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Microsoft could have more documentation, and it isn't always right - SQL Server 2005 developer here.
In fact, when you search in the online help, it also searches web forums for the product, so that you can read about other users' real experiences.
But it could be worse.
Microsoft is many things but they do a lot of documentation for their code along with examples.
Microsoft's MSDN documentation system and the frequency and depth of updates across all their products is superb. I have yet to find anything even close from competitors.
@Mike. The MSDN documentation gives a run for their money to Google's and Facebook. Sure their APIs may change a lot too but their documentation system is effective, that's hard to disprove.
Google & Facebook aren't alone when it comes to poor documentation. Microsoft's documentation is rarely up to snuff either.