Discussion around the API

Hey,

that's kind of a specific suggestion but I want to see if I'm the only one to be affected by the breaking changes in the API (that come with hardly any warning or any sustainable ways to handle them) or if I am a whiner.

I'm currently dirty patching YATA to handle unannounced (or at least not announced where it should have) breaking changes.
Worst part is that it's Yet Another Tuesday Evening... I know that I should make the changes when I can or when I want, but having a broken website and a broken discord bot stresses me out to the point where I feel forced to fix it asap.

I'm not the first one to be upset and I will not be the first one to leave this community. But before that I would like to know why the API development is as it is and I will do my best to either understand and accept or make things change.

So what I suggest is having a chat with ched (and/or any other Torn staff) and whoever from the player dev community wants to join.
The idea would be to share views, opinions, pros and cons of the current state and understand a bit better what's going on behind the scene. And maybe have it differently if all sides come to an agreement.

Cheers

R+

I'll support just about anything that makes it easier for Kivou to keep YATA going!

Would be great if Ched is up for this at some point when the schedule allows! Can see it being very beneficial for the community.

R+ Would be great for us and our broken discord bots too, can't imagine what its like for something with as many users as Yata.

YATA has been very useful for me, I'm okay to get behind helping anything that makes your life easier/stress free.

Rated +

Love this, I'm working on a project which requires crons to fetch Torn's data and does so very specifically. It's not fully up and running right now, but if it was, these API changes would have has my site break.

A pre announcement warning would be much better, ie; As of next Tuesday, these API changes will take place.

Honestly, it's not that hard to release schema changes 2 or 3 days ahead of time. Ched must know the stress you're talking about, and with the adoption of TornStats last year (maybe? time be weird) it seems that he does watch the external tools community, so hopefully you'll get some sort of positive resolution. Losing YATA would be a huge loss for the community. R+

It's a suggestion for them to give notice about API changes so developers can be prepared. It's not a bug in the API, it's a bug in their communication, or lack thereof.

It’s just common courtesy. Manners costs nothing. Good luck Kivou.

It seems sort of silly to me to have an API if there’s no warning of what changes are coming down the pipe. “Hey everyone! It’s now easy to access info to build tools! But don’t rely on them, cuz we break them. Often. Without warning”

not intending to be a jerk about this or anything like that. But i just don’t understand why breaking API changes aren’t announced and documented a week before they are live. Every time (barring exploit patching or anything like that obviously). What’s the motivation to invest the time into tools that leverage the API if it just gets broke without warning?

I’m not even suggesting we get to an “API committee” level tbh, just give these folks a heads up of what’s coming rather than break their tools with no warning; leaving them with a broken tool and I’m sure a steady stream of complaints from people who use their tools.

Hopefully everyone can work something out that doesn’t slow development/improvements of the API but also stops randomly wrecking services we all know and love

We need api versioning and at least time to warn devs that the old version is depreciated and phasing out in X amount of time.

If we aren't warned beforehand.

Can this "discussion" perhaps be documented like a news-article-interview or something to be published?

I really love how the API opens Torn up to awesome developers, and I love how simple the rules are. It's just very taxing to be a developer of things that break outside your control every now and again. Especially when it's free services that users expect uptime and availability from, at least to some extent.

Yes API versioning is what I have in mind because even if we are warned before (which we are from time to time) I see 2 issues:
- we are warned about breaking change but honestly even the tiniest change can break a code. So breaking change doesn't mean much to me.
- even if we are warned before it doesn't change the fact that we have to patch our codes so that it works before and after the change.

But I guess that's the point of the the discussion to clarify the needs and possibilities.

Thank you all for the comments and for the respectful attitude.

Yes! We all love what the API brings to the game, that's why we hate it so much Load image: wink

Agreed it's not a classical 250R+ suggestion. But it's not a classical b&I too. Where it is in the forum doesn't matter much (as long as it's not graved or over commented with shit talks about how Torn devs stuck).

My point was to draw attention and see if a "big enough" user base was willing to work on improving the current scheme.

And yeah, maybe bogie can be our entry point. We will see later how we approach this.

Like a gambler clutching his lucky rabbits foot watching the wheels spin...thats how i imagine you all crouched over your systems, screen glare and all..

Not everyone can play all day, not everyone has the time, data, credit card, DPs and kickass programing experience. To run at the levels you seem to be aiming for. Your love for Torn in a very real sense destroys the game for noobs. There is a clear dictatorship running thru Torn City and the HoF factions are very much doing the dirty work.
By syndicating data to farm off weaker players who are not weak but only starting. Thus destroying their desire to play the game.

All the tools and apps you make are to help you f**k over the noobs and maintain your own hold over the torn player comunity.

Ched, break them and make them play...

Maybe it would be worth giving the creators of popular apps / tools access to a preview / beta API ahead of changes going live?

Their faction is top 50 (ish). Is 50 really your sense of HoF faction? Cuz i thought it was top 10 that was considered HoF

The data that Kivou syndicates is technically the same data you can collect with a pen and paper... so I am not sure what you are complaining about.

As for farming off of noobs, this has been balanced by fairfight (a tad bit). But I still rather farm my respect off of AFK Torn players.

What hold does Kivou have over the community? If his system goes down, we go back to the dark ages of pen and paper until another programmer makes our life easier for us.

Edit: While you see a rabbit's foot in the hands of a gambler, I see a math problem the teacher (Ched) hands to the class (us)... but the math problem isn't something that is taught to the class. And so we can solve the issue ourselves, but it would take more time than the teacher teaching us before the actual test. We don't clutch "the system" for luck... we solve "the system" so "the system" can give us an answer.