11–20 of 36 posts
I remember constant problems with authentication and sharing APIs. How do you not have tests for those?
Facebook is still way too cowboy.
FB seems to have a two tiered developer program. There are the peons, the guys forced to toil away trying to figure out how to make the stuff work by doing exactly what is described in the blog. And then there are the anointed: the big companies or YC-related startups that enjoy special access to FB employees to get the answers they need. For now it doesn't seem to really be harming FB. They enjoy extreme growth and…
> or YC-related startups I don't think a startup would enjoy special access to FB technology just by being related to YC
We’ll provide product, technical and design resources to support new Y Combinator companies interested in working with us to build deeply social products, whether a website or an application on Facebook.com. These companies will have priority access to our technologies and programs such as Facebook Credits, Instant Personalization and upcoming beta features.
FB seems to have a two tiered developer program. There are the peons, the guys forced to toil away trying to figure out how to make the stuff work by doing exactly what is described in the blog. And then there are the anointed: the big companies or YC-related startups that enjoy special access to FB employees to get the answers they need. For now it doesn't seem to really be harming FB. They enjoy extreme growth and…
...and for the love of god don't use facebook for user auth. The API will mysteriously go down without warning for hours at a time.
This is one of the reasons I left my last job. Facebook was crucial to the business strategy, but it's miserable to work with.
At least twitter's api is easy to use.
http://www.sethcall.com/blog/2010/09/30/facebook-api-does-no...
I am really quite pleased he took the time to address the post. Let's hope he can succeed.
Ryan Waggoner wrote a similar post like this a few days back (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1731427), so this is clearly bugging a lot of people. Please collaborate your efforts if possible.
FB seems to have a two tiered developer program. There are the peons, the guys forced to toil away trying to figure out how to make the stuff work by doing exactly what is described in the blog. And then there are the anointed: the big companies or YC-related startups that enjoy special access to FB employees to get the answers they need. For now it doesn't seem to really be harming FB. They enjoy extreme growth and…
Sadly, this is not the case. I am currently working for a large media company that had/has relatively close ties with members of the FB dev team. The position I hold now was previously occupied by a fellow who went to work for FB and was a key interface with them over the last year and a half for things like FB Connect. I can tell you now that we got no privileged documentation that anyone else didn't. The only thing…
When I browsed the API on my own it was an utter disaster on par with the article's description.
FB seems to have a two tiered developer program. There are the peons, the guys forced to toil away trying to figure out how to make the stuff work by doing exactly what is described in the blog. And then there are the anointed: the big companies or YC-related startups that enjoy special access to FB employees to get the answers they need. For now it doesn't seem to really be harming FB. They enjoy extreme growth and…
The reason is very closely tied to Facebook's engineering success: there is no top-down control over anything. All the engineers are encouraged to break things and to keep the pace of progress rapid. For developers on their API this is a nightmare scenario. However your claim that this is not sustainable may just be wishful thinking. Facebook craps all over its developers, but it's not clear at all that that price is too high to pay for the continued agility that Facebook exhibits. It's hard to argue with that kind of market dominance. Plus, Facebook is so nimble that if API stability does become a problem they can easily switch gears and focus on it.
In other words, I wouldn't hold your breath for any change at Facebook.
Carl Sjogreen, who leads the platform PM team, commented that good changes are coming: http://www.sethcall.com/blog/2010/09/30/facebook-api-does-no... I am really quite pleased he took the time to address the post. Let's hope he can succeed.