On Sun, Dec 1, 2013 at 7:57 PM, Barnes, Hugh <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> +1 to all of Richard's points here. Making something easier for you to
> develop is no justification for making it harder to consume or deviating
> from well supported standards.



​I just want to point out that as much as we all really, *really* want
"easy to consume" and "following the standards" to be the same
thing....they're not. Correct content negotiation is one of those things
that often follows the phrase "all they have to do...", which is always a
red flag, as in  "Why give the user  different URLs ​when *all they have to
do is*...". Caching, json vs javascript vs jsonp, etc. all make this
harder. If *all * *I have to do* is know that all the consumers of my data
are going to do content negotiation right, and then I need to get deep into
the guts of my caching mechanism, then set up an environment where it's all
easy to test...well, it's harder.

And don't tell me how lazy I am until you invent a day with a lot more
hours. I'm sick of people telling me I'm lazy because I'm not pure. I
expose APIs (which have their own share of problems, of course) because I
want them to be *useful* and *used. *

  -Bill, apparently feeling a little bitter this morning -




-- 
Bill Dueber
Library Systems Programmer
University of Michigan Library