Biography Of Angeliki Cooney | Senior Vice President Life Sciences | Albany, ...
Jesse Emery, Your Trove
1. Why Your API Sucks
Business of APIs Conference, NY, 10/19/2011
An API developer survey opens Pandora’s Box
http://bit.ly/trove-survey-results
Jesse Emery, Co-Founder
www.yourtrove.com
j@yourtrove.com
@ejesse
#apisuck
10/19/2011
1
Thursday, October 27, 2011
2. We did a survey on API Pain
It made some waves
You can view it here:
http://bit.ly/trove-survey-results
10/19/2011
2
Thursday, October 27, 2011
3. “Facebook Wins ‘Worst API’ in Developer Survey”
- TechCrunch
“Developers relate a tale of woe with Facebook's
API”
- The Inquirer
“Developer survey finds Facebook has the worst
API”
- ZD Net
10/19/2011
3
Thursday, October 27, 2011
4. Booooring
It’s no real secret that Facebook’s API is widely loathed
10/19/2011
4
Thursday, October 27, 2011
6. Developers Hate Your API
“Every integration is its own
[expletive-deleted] adventure.”
10/19/2011
6
Thursday, October 27, 2011
7. APIs don’t live in a vacuum
10/19/2011
7
Thursday, October 27, 2011
8. APIs don’t live in a vacuum
10/19/2011
8
Thursday, October 27, 2011
9. “different idiosyncrasies, ie rate limiting, terms
of service, data format, old documentation etc.”
“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.”
10/19/2011
9
Thursday, October 27, 2011
10. “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.”
10/19/2011
10
Thursday, October 27, 2011
11. “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
10/19/2011
11
Thursday, October 27, 2011
13. Where else are you losing
Developers’ $$$?!
10/19/2011
13
Thursday, October 27, 2011
14. Your Documentation Sucks
“poor documentation” mentioned 41 times
“lack of good examples + sandboxes”
“Documentation and examples. Give me those,
keep them up to date and I’m happy.”
10/19/2011
14
Thursday, October 27, 2011
15. Y U No Update Documentation?????
10/19/2011
15
Thursday, October 27, 2011
16. Your Error Handling and
Test Environments Suck
“error handling” a frequent complaint
“Complete lack of test environments.”
“The ones that you can’t test from a localhost
suck”
10/19/2011
16
Thursday, October 27, 2011
17. We suck more together
Inconsistent standards, libraries, and
documentation
“REST vs. XML-RPC vs. SOAP,
JSON vs. XML vs. Random POST data.
Every API seems to be different”
“Change is good, but change when it breaks
existing 3rd party API’s is a nightmare.”
10/19/2011
17
Thursday, October 27, 2011
18. We suck more together
“Random 3rd party outages that take you out as
well”
Error Codes differ between services.
On bad Auth, Some 404, others 401 or 403.
And some 500. This is hell on devs.
“Different data formats from different services
for essentially the same data.”
10/19/2011
18
Thursday, October 27, 2011
19. And there’s so much other
confusion
Authentication vs. Authorization
Oh do developers hate OAuth
(users, too!)
Actually getting through to stakeholders (that’s
YOU)
Rate limiting and billing
10/19/2011
19
Thursday, October 27, 2011
21. “Paypal. Sweet god, fuck paypal.” “OMFG Salesforce
“Digg is basically a giant API sucks. That is
example of ‘this is how to not all”
do it’.”
“Affiliate + API —
“Netsuite SOAPs almost no one does it
documentation is, umm… right.”
completely fucking incorrect”
“We’re still working on
“Too many to relate.”
it.”
10/19/2011
21
Thursday, October 27, 2011
29. Developer Bill of Rights
What can they expect from ALL of us?
10/19/2011
29
Thursday, October 27, 2011
30. Hold our own accountable
10/19/2011
30
Thursday, October 27, 2011
31. Better APIs = Happier Developers =
Happier Customers = more $$$
10/19/2011
31
Thursday, October 27, 2011
32. Recap
We’re 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
10/19/2011
32
Thursday, October 27, 2011
33. Your Business is NOT your API. It is
what that API provides access to.
So fix your API and the ecosystem around it!
10/19/2011
33
Thursday, October 27, 2011
34. Thank you #BAPI!
http://bit.ly/trove-survey-results
Jesse Emery, Co-Founder
www.yourtrove.com
j@yourtrove.com
@ejesse
10/19/2011
34
Thursday, October 27, 2011