Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into?

#21

Post by cia48621793 » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 2:51 PM UTC

WebRTC: There's simply too much to configure and the modularization is also exaggerated.

WinAPI: Because of compatibility some old API procedures with ugly designs have to remain, for example CallWndProc. Bonus: WinAPI is Pascal calling convention based (__stdcall vs __cdecl).

Unity Engine: Because pascal case sucks (I consider CamelCase for C# master race).

Webpack/Gulp: again the same clause of WebRTC but ‘parenthesized’/‘bracketized’

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into?

#22

Post by potench » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 2:51 PM UTC

Omniture: eVar7, prop5...? Terrible.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into?

#23

Post by jetti » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

Most market exchanges, more specifically CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange). They use FIX Protocol for their API but they don't follow their own spec and so it is just guessing as what they actually want.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into?

#24

Post by drdaeman » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

jamesmp98 wrote: post #12

drdaeman wrote: post #8

Hmmm... Anything enteprisey. I once had to interop with Viacess-Orca RiGHTv IPTV/DRM clusterfuck, and wouldn't recommend anyone to get remotely close. Not just to that, but to anything SOAP. Then, maybe, PayPal's NVP APIs. Quite a mess (although, I guess, I can understand why it's that way), with docs not really covering the fine details, esp. all the possible failures.

" Viacess-Orca RiGHTv IPTV/DRM " a what?

An system used for IPTV services by one of ISPs (a large telco) I've worked for. Basically, a giant piece of Java EE that strives to make everyone's life harder. Consumers get all the niceties of DRM, service provides get fun time trying to tie it with their accounting systems (that's what I had to do) and trying to figure out when it breaks, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into?

#25

Post by Can_Not » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 3:31 PM UTC

I forgot what it was called, but instead of JSON or XML, this HTTP API used:

    FOO=ABCDEFG|BAR=QWERTYUIOP

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into?

#26

Post by rcavezza » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

The Hubspot API is particularly awful.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into?

#27

Post by Someone » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

luca_ing wrote: post #10

The old Microsoft Crypto API (the newer one is better, but still bad) It's been a few years, but from memory: IIRC you could e.g. install new keys, but not quite list them (somehow only almost), and you couldn't remove them again. Amusingly you could also tell the API was developed by three different people, who preferred different API styles (I remember one was fond of callbacks, the others apparently not so much).…

I guess you mean the API discussed here: http://sethnielson.blogspot.nl/2008/12/repost-playing-around... (Badly formatted and code is missing)

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into?

#28

Post by cauterized » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 8:03 PM UTC

Phabricator's. Weird gaps, missing fields, bizarre unnecessary complexity, incomprehensible structures.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into?

#29

Post by bbcbasic » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

This was a bit painful to use:

http://reaxml.realestate.com.au/docs/reaxml1-xml-format.html

Its an xml format for uploading property listings. Came with a dtd but was hard to really fathom out which combinations are valid.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst API you've run into?

#30

Post by aprdm » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 1:41 AM UTC

Zabbix. It's really terrible.