someone’s never used a good api. like mastodon
Everyone loves the idea of scraping, no one likes maintaining scrapers that break once a week because the CSS or HTML changed.
The sad part is that scrapping is often easier then using the api.
Much less beholden to arbitrary rules also. Way too many times companies will just up and lift their API access or push through restrictions. No ty, I’ll just access it myself then
API starter kit
- Outdated and unsupported and hasn’t been replaced yet but is the standard way to use the service.
- Lots of authorization tokens.
- The example in the docs doesn’t work (if there is one).
- You have no idea where the online tutorial got the information because it doesn’t have links to resources and the docs have barely anything even though its giant.
- Uses asynchronous programming to make it faster but its still much much slower then scrapping without asynchronous programming.
I have totally no idea what these are about…
Websites and services create APIs for programmers to use them. So Spotify has code that let’s you build a program that can use its features. But you need a token they give you after you sign up. The token can be revoked and used to monitor how much of their service you’re using. That way they can restrict if its too much.
Scraping is raw dogging the web slut you met at the cougar ranch who went home with you because you reminded her of her dog