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Most companies seem to maintain two APIs: a “private API” that they use to actually to deliver their website or service, and a second “developer API” for the ex

Most companies seem to maintain two APIs: a “private API” that they use to actually to deliver their website or service, and a second “developer API” for the exclusive use of third party services. If you’re just interested in putting together a quick hack or proof of concept, the private API often has a “time to 200” orders of magnitude faster than the public developer API: pop open the Network tab on your browser, perform an action, copy as cURL, run in terminal. Boom, 200. Twiddle a few parameters so it does what you want, and get on with building your demo or hack. If that kind of learn-by-example speed was available for the developer API - or, better yet, companies actually used the same API for their service as a form of both dogfooding and to provide a great example, the API world would be a happier place.

saagarjha 5y ago
Many companies only have one API, and sadly it’s just the private one.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  If it's reachable by your computer and it has the right credentials for it, it's not really "private".
  - nexuist 5y ago
    This is fine for toy projects but not for commercial applications. Consuming private APIs without permission and making money from them leads to lawsuits.
stickfigure 5y ago
I don't think any consumer of a public API would appreciate the churn of a private API. Either that or your web team is going to suffocate without the ability to make breaking changes.