Social Network APIs & Protocols Considered Harmful*

Casey Liss:

About a month ago, I decided to sunset Vignette.

This was a decision that was a long time coming. In short, due to changes in Facebook, Instagram, and most especially Twitter, Vignette cannot work nearly as reliably as I would like. As such, I have decided to pull it from sale, worldwide. It isn’t right to charge money — any amount of money — for something that no longer works properly.

In my previous existence as a software developer, I took some solace from the knowledge that the frameworks for dealing with the operating system, hardware, networks, etc. were known quantities that weren’t liable to change unexpectedly.

Not only are the frameworks provided by the social networks incomplete and not always documented, but they absolutely will change at any moment because, unlike the programmers of operating systems and traditional applications, those working for the social networks serve their paymaster, not the end-user or the third-party developer.

Hat tip to Manton Reece for sharing the above link.

(*For those who don’t get the reference, it’s riffing on Goto Statement Considered Harmful by Edsger W. Dijkstra)