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No, I don't use the leaderboards/segments at all fortunately. But I am concerned the APIs I do use will stop working next week. It's really nice they contacted

No, I don't use the leaderboards/segments at all fortunately. But I am concerned the APIs I do use will stop working next week. It's really nice they contacted some API users about incoming changes but outside of this inner circle it will have come as an unpleasant surprise today. Out of interest, how did you prepare for unstated API changes? What if their change had crippled your integration, or did they contact to inform you it wouldn't?

pedalpete 6y ago
We speak to them a few times a year, it was just kinda mentioned that some changes were coming to leaderboards. We had been considering using some of the learderboard stuff, so it was fortunate for us that they mentioned it. I can answer this in two parts, as we are both consumers of the Strava API, as well as providing an API (of non-strava data) to other businesses. When using another API, you always have to be prepared for that data to not be available. This isn't just from a business point of view, but technical as well. Will a change in their API cause your entire app to fall over? Even with our Strava integration, if Strava cut off access, the users can still upload their GPX tracks directly, so it would definitely hurt, but not take us down completely. When we are working on our own API, man..I'll be honest, it's hard. From a technical perspective managing lots of versions running at the same time can be a pain, and add quite a bit of challenge to engineering. We have had to remove features, and we've reached out to our API users who use those features to say they are going away (or sometimes we just turn them off, and nobody notices). When we've had to turn off features, it's usually a business case, just like Strava, and to be honest, our customers have understood why we make the change, and have been accepting of it. Sounds like you're a Strava user, we built https://ayvri.com https://ayvri.com
- kingosticks 6y ago
  No, but it's not just falling over entirely that's the problem. APIs go down all the time so that's a case you'd hopefully handle gracefully. But when your project suddenly and silently produces an empty blank result, say. And you learn that's not some transient issue, that's how it is now. That's a huge breaking change for you. A non-breaking change, at least in the short-term, would be to continue providing the old data as is. Yes, the project might still be dead but how about showing people just an ounce of respect? This isn't rocket science, this is customer relations, and yet an established company like Strava still behaves this way. I appreciate you sharing this. Perhaps I am an idealist but it doesn't hurt to tell consumers that you are going to break the API contract you made with them. It's how I choose to treat the people I work with because I want to keep working with them. Supporting your old stuff is hard and frustrating when internally you've moved on, I get that, I do it too. Both as a consumer of free APIs like this and in my day job where there's obviously money involved too. But even with a free API like Strava's there is value for both sides, without that value at least one side wouldn't even be there. If you want to take advantage of that value in the long-term. there is an underlying agreement you don't screw each other over. If you do play these unprofessional games then don't expect people to be happy about it, don't expect them to be understanding, and don't expect them to work with you again. I'm not arguing against making changes if they need to made. I'm arguing against arrogant and/or lazy companies that screw people over when they implement their changes in this way. These companies can do better and so we should call them out on it.
  - pedalpete 6y ago
    Yeah, Strava had a big organizational change about 6 months ago when the original founders returned. I think the previous management burned some bridges. The original guys are making good improvements, and I think their minds and hearts are in the right place. If they knew they were going to screw somebody over, I assume the BD/API guys would have reached out, if they were aware.

pedalpete 6y ago

We speak to them a few times a year, it was just kinda mentioned that some changes were coming to leaderboards. We had been considering using some of the learderboard stuff, so it was fortunate for us that they mentioned it. I can answer this in two parts, as we are both consumers of the Strava API, as well as providing an API (of non-strava data) to other businesses. When using another API, you always have to be prepared for that data to not be available. This isn't just from a business point of view, but technical as well. Will a change in their API cause your entire app to fall over? Even with our Strava integration, if Strava cut off access, the users can still upload their GPX tracks directly, so it would definitely hurt, but not take us down completely. When we are working on our own API, man..I'll be honest, it's hard. From a technical perspective managing lots of versions running at the same time can be a pain, and add quite a bit of challenge to engineering. We have had to remove features, and we've reached out to our API users who use those features to say they are going away (or sometimes we just turn them off, and nobody notices). When we've had to turn off features, it's usually a business case, just like Strava, and to be honest, our customers have understood why we make the change, and have been accepting of it. Sounds like you're a Strava user, we built https://ayvri.com https://ayvri.com

kingosticks 6y ago
No, but it's not just falling over entirely that's the problem. APIs go down all the time so that's a case you'd hopefully handle gracefully. But when your project suddenly and silently produces an empty blank result, say. And you learn that's not some transient issue, that's how it is now. That's a huge breaking change for you. A non-breaking change, at least in the short-term, would be to continue providing the old data as is. Yes, the project might still be dead but how about showing people just an ounce of respect? This isn't rocket science, this is customer relations, and yet an established company like Strava still behaves this way. I appreciate you sharing this. Perhaps I am an idealist but it doesn't hurt to tell consumers that you are going to break the API contract you made with them. It's how I choose to treat the people I work with because I want to keep working with them. Supporting your old stuff is hard and frustrating when internally you've moved on, I get that, I do it too. Both as a consumer of free APIs like this and in my day job where there's obviously money involved too. But even with a free API like Strava's there is value for both sides, without that value at least one side wouldn't even be there. If you want to take advantage of that value in the long-term. there is an underlying agreement you don't screw each other over. If you do play these unprofessional games then don't expect people to be happy about it, don't expect them to be understanding, and don't expect them to work with you again. I'm not arguing against making changes if they need to made. I'm arguing against arrogant and/or lazy companies that screw people over when they implement their changes in this way. These companies can do better and so we should call them out on it.
- pedalpete 6y ago
  Yeah, Strava had a big organizational change about 6 months ago when the original founders returned. I think the previous management burned some bridges. The original guys are making good improvements, and I think their minds and hearts are in the right place. If they knew they were going to screw somebody over, I assume the BD/API guys would have reached out, if they were aware.