Why Isn't There Any Good STEEM API Documentation 1+ Year Later? AKA : Was Steemit Built to Fail?
Claim : The STEEM API is basically unusable by most anyone outside of STINC and a few developers who've been in the ecosystem for a long period of time.
Trying to build an app to integrate with the STEEM API is a futile effort for most and from what I can see and am being told by others, STINC has done little to nothing in over a year to improve this situation.
The documentation is all over the place, outdated, hard to understand, gives very little reference or examples and is basically a clusterfuck for anyone not on Steemit talking with someone who has gleaned this hidden knowledge already, and those who have this hidden knowledge are not exactly available for consultation.
Which is odd because, all I hear @ned say repeatedly is that STINC wants others to build apps on the STEEM blockchain, yet very few can accomplish this due to the vague/incomplete/basically useless documentation available.
My views are based off a months worth of discussions with 5+ developers attempting to integrate one programs API with STEEM's. Not one of these Dev's can figure it out yet, and all of them state that it's due to the lack of or vague documentation on the STEEM API.
"/shrug It's as if someone doesn't really want others building apps on this blockchain."
TL;DR
Here's what you can expect in the first month of trying to integrate with the STEEM API.
(Yes, your skin color will change too.)
I can 100% attest to this. I have 2 full time developers working on apps for Steemit, both are very experienced in other blockchains and are continually bitching at me about steemit docs and asking me questions that they shouldn't have to ask
I hope you get some answers, or help. Maybe I am no professional developer or anything but I learn quick and can learn just about anything. The transactions aspect of the APIs is another story. The difficulty of it was verified when professional devs couldn't get it to work. Most be some sort of trick somewhere to get it to. Anyways I hope we can get this figured out, for your sake at least @tuck-fheman.
ironic that the main post is 'worth' less than a self-voted snarky 'reply' - that kind of thing will ultimately kill the platform as it disenchants newcomers and quality content providers - once again the rich get richer and the rest languish in the doldrums. sad
Okay, this is heart breaking because I really want to develop a couple of business applications. Thanks for the warning before I go to fund raising.
Who are these Five Brilliant Steemians? And what can we do to help STINC build better materials?
Same here at @clevercreator if you've noticed I stopped writing and just drop in the chats to say hi to you guys. I am still convinced that Steemit was an experiment and that most of us were misused. Expect Stall tactics until EOS becomes more than Unobtanium and this is rendered obsolete. The name of the game is to stay ahead, so give them time to get their apps in place and the rest of us will get our hands on the Magical formulas to try to make what they've already have running lol
The goal now is to make sure that it is unable to be rendered obsolete. You have more power than you realize.
Glad I'm not the only one frustrated about this. I'm trying to develop a Steemit app myself, but the documentation is so lacking I often spend way too much time figuring out a simple API call.
I bet if they paid someone for a week or two to write decent documentation it would pay them back in no time purely because better 3rd party apps would be written.
I know this has been really frustrating, for you and for a lot of other people. Hopefully it's about to get better!
Oh, nice post, welcome to steemit, good community.
#Poker.
;)
Fully agree with this.
Extremely important issue to the platform's growth potential.
One of the reason why I didn't think STEEM was going to make it through it's nuclear winter was the lack of communication from Steemit Inc or anything that resembled anything logical. It just looked like a money grab in a lot of ways. But I'm convinced now that STEEM will survive. But yeah it would seem that STEEMIT INC would take steps to encourage 3rd party development including granting certain users allotments to work on stuff.
Hard work is about to pay off man, we are going through hard times, but we are here to support, and as a community we are gonna get what we want. Keep it up my man. POKER FTW!!!
Here is a good API explorer ;)
http://steemroll.io/api-explorer
Yeah, that's what I expected. :)
That's the #2 Google search result
yeah, bad link
haha yea
Pretty ironic don't ya think...
Only if you didn't get the joke.
That was genuinely funny.
the link is definitely broken