Google Pulls Access To Unsupported But Popular Weather API 168
New submitter drsmack1 writes with news of some bummed out programmers losing access to an undocumented Google API. From the article: "The curious popularity of the Google Weather API appears to be coming to a close. The search giant never officially supported the feature, but developers have used the unofficial feed available from the iGoogle homepage. With iGoogle now set for deprecation in November, developers are reporting that the once simple weather API is no longer returning data."
Seems like the sort of thing you could replace with a tiny bit of XSLT.
Re:I wish Google would have warned us... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, you're using an unsupported API... (Score:5, Insightful)
And then complaining when said API disappears? For the US at least NOAA offers a pretty nice REST/XML API that's free and even comes with icons you can link to if building a webpage or app.
Re:I wish Google would have warned us... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it asking too much of a company whose motto is "Don't be evil" to have given a week or two of warning or at least to have spent a minute or two setting up a meaningful and informative error page? Come on Google, you can do better...
And if it were a supported API it would have that, but it's pretty clearly not a supported API.
Re:Any alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Beliving in global warming doesn't automatically make you a "fanatic." Stop being an asshole.
Re:I wish Google would have warned us... (Score:0, Insightful)
You think Google should be obliged to warn you before shutting down their FREE, unofficial, undocumented, unsupported weather API? The one they provided at ABSOLUTELY NO COST TO YOU, that weather API? Wow, that is some massive sense of self-entitlement you got there, bud.
Re:What is the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which part of silently dropping undocumented and unsupported service is "being evil"? Now if the motto was "Be nice" that'd be something to expect and it would be on par with "Dear trespassers! Please note that you will have to find another shortcut as I'm fixing this hole in the fence next week. I apologize for inconvenience".
There's difference between deprecated andundocumented.
Re:Usupported interfaces? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because somebody could not be bothered to read the interface definitions, or they were unavailable, or too hard/cumbersome to work with at the time, etc. Do you always write your throwaway scripts to an official, certified specification, never taking a shortcut? Have you never been in a situation where a throwaway script becomes a perpetual part of a system?
Besides, what is the guarantee that if you code to the exact specs, things will work any better, or that the other free service will be any more reliable or long-lived?
Re:I wish Google would have warned us... (Score:5, Insightful)
that seemed to imply that the user had done something wrong
You did do something wrong. You used an unsupported API.
Re:Any alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you saying that the weather data supplied from thousands of user across the world to Weather Underground is suspect because the whomever runs the site accepts the science behind anthropogenic climate change? How does that NOT make you the fanatic?
Lies! (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such thing as "a tiny bit of XSLT".
Re:Any alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, global warming is real, and we are fucked already, it is just a matter of how fucked we want to be, just somewhat, or really hard. Given how much is happening even in countries not as backwards as the US, I guess we want to be really fucked.
Re:I wish Google would have warned us... (Score:2, Insightful)
that seemed to imply that the user had done something wrong
You did do something wrong. You used an unsupported API.
no.. the wrong thing was to use a google api in the first place. it's totally random how they shut things down or roll them up - unsupported or not, this particular api had a pretty good run.
Re:I wish Google would have warned us... (Score:5, Insightful)
And don't you think that the whole "self-entitlement" thing is getting overused?
You see, things that are free are still things that people do use and therefore it is an issue if the service is gone. If the gmail would be gone tomorrow for good without any warning, would you still repeat the same mantra? It is for free after all... except that a good portion of the business world relies on it beyond the personal "freerider" usage. Just because one runs a free service doesn't mean that one isn't responsible for the service.