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The unbearable frustration of figuring out APIs

blog.ar-ms.me

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Re: The unbearable frustration of figuring out APIs

#51

Post by ramon156 »

epgui wrote: post #46
another_twist wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree here. APIs are meant for using and not learning. But the context matters here. For some paid system, there better be an API thats easy to use or I am throwing AI at the problem or hoping someone else will do it. If its something worth learning - say Guava data structures or RocksDb core - yup I'll invest the time to learn. That learning transfers over. But trying to learn some shitty AWS api and its nuances,…

Language is meant for using, not learning. Why is Arabic/French/Chinese/etc so difficult?

Language ≠ API. you shouldn't be learning new grammar just because you visit another municipality. Everyone knows how grammar works in your country (at least they should).

This is the same issue with libraries. They should limit how you build your code. This is why I hate frameworks as a whole. They don't add anything, just abstract and limit.

Re: The unbearable frustration of figuring out APIs

#52

Post by mangamadaiyan »

adventured wrote: post #27
IncreasePosts wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is there are a wide class of problems that you want solved but putting on the work will prevent you from actually doing the task because the cost isn't worth the reward. Because it's for a low impact tool. Or you can't imagine yourself dealing with this API again within a year or two by which time it will probably be completely different with v2 of the API. So, you reach for AI and it works really well. S…

Having no minimum wage for LLMs is fantastic. It opens up all manner of work that had previously been priced out.

Hm. I thought LLMs weren't free. Am I missing something?

Re: The unbearable frustration of figuring out APIs

#54

Post by talentedcoin »

footy wrote: post #34

I don't understand why people who think like this get (or want to get) jobs as software developers It's clearly not enjoyable for them so why doesn't the author pivot to something else and stop doing things they hate? It's weird

They seem to be unemployed (maybe for a reason)

Re: The unbearable frustration of figuring out APIs

#56

Post by VerifiedReports »

lacoolj wrote: post #8

I'm really sorry, but when someone posts an entire article that they don't first proof-read at least once, it makes me question the rest of what I'm reading and can't continue. > ... I found mysekf launching TextEdit just to do that I hope everyone else enjoys it!

That's minor compared to "how the API to use it looks like."

Re: The unbearable frustration of figuring out APIs

#57

Post by mayoff »

frizlab wrote: post #35

Tangentially related, I did a project (forked, but fully rewrote) to be able to avoid the Package.swift file for single file projects like these. [1] The general idea is a bit like uv if I have understood uv correctly. Basically you do your imports normally and add a comment next to them that tells where the imports should be found. Then instead of running your project through swift directly you run it through swift-…

Thank you for this. I’ve been using it for years.

Re: The unbearable frustration of figuring out APIs

#58

Post by xtiansimon »

marcellus23 wrote: post #12

All of this is written with a sense of anger and sarcastic invective that doesn't seem appropriate. This is part of learning any new language or API. Going in with an attitude of "I should already know how all this works, why am I forced to do research or look at docs?" seems unfair and will spoil the experience of learning anything. > Why was that so hard? Why are the models here separate from the ones in the right…

> “All of this is written with a sense of anger and sarcastic invective that doesn't seem appropriate.”

Huh. The end of the piece says the author was “frustrated”. And throughout the author says things at the end of paragraphs like, _the result was an error x, but I already have/did x!_

I read the piece because I was curious about this description of “anger”. I relate to the journey as the author describes it—frustration. Though, there are a few “dramatic” words here and there. Not least of which is in the title, “unbearable”. But I usually mark that as a crutch in the personal Blog medium.

On a more pedagogical note, encountering a personal piece like this documenting a journey of idea to (near) success is an important genre of tech writing for one’s self and maybe others. As others have noted the OPs missteps, so too the OP, with hindsight, can revisit the piece and notice where they went wrong. If you’re away from the language/project for a while a piece like this is a good review before starting the next project.

Re: The unbearable frustration of figuring out APIs

#59

Post by selfhoster11 »

mangamadaiyan wrote: post #52
adventured wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having no minimum wage for LLMs is fantastic. It opens up all manner of work that had previously been priced out.

Hm. I thought LLMs weren't free. Am I missing something?

1. You can run decent local AI now - see /r/LocalLlama. You pay the electricity cost and hardware capex (which isn't that expensive for smaller models).

2. Chinese APIs like Moonshot and DeepSeek have extremely cheap pricing, with optional subscriptions that will grant you a fixed number of requests of any context size for under $10 a month. Claude Code is the bourgeois option, GLM-4.7 does quite well on vibe coding and is extremely cheap.

Re: The unbearable frustration of figuring out APIs

#60

Post by footy »

another_twist wrote: post #42
footy wrote: post #34

I don't understand why people who think like this get (or want to get) jobs as software developers It's clearly not enjoyable for them so why doesn't the author pivot to something else and stop doing things they hate? It's weird

Because the time investment isnt worth it most of the time. Unless its a widely used framework / library its worth no ones time to try and understand API docs, each and every component and then deal with some genius patterns thrown here and here. Its a skill that has low market value so sharpening it isnt worth it.

right but not all things are done for "market value" reasons, and that's kind of my point. If you don't find this stuff interesting, what's the point of building your career in the space?
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