Re^5: Scraping an ASP form I don't have any control over

Agreed. That said, typically though, someone producing a real API will have a version number associated with it (v1, v2 etc). If you're not getting JSON, XML or some other form of structured data, or you're having to change code due to undocumented or unannounced changes made by the site in question, they suck. Period.

This problem is not related to Perl even... this is across the board. If there's an API, keep it consistent, and don't make major changes without a bump in revision. If you're attempting to offer up data, document it. Do not randomly change stuff. If you're a user of a site that does not have a documented data format or a documented API, bitch at them, or go with a different site.

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Re^6: Scraping an ASP form I don't have any control over by huck (Prior) on May 31, 2017 at 07:20 UTC
And the youtube api just changed again. No notice, no updates to the docs, it just started returning different data out of the blue. Took me about 2 hours to determine that the problems is that for some reason specifying mine=true is returning a different channel-id and playlist-ids, and to build a workaround with forUsername= instead, since that returns the original data. now this is google/youtube, one of the biggest players on the 'net', and they feel it is ok to just change the rules whenever they feel like it. If they do this it just shows it is foolish to trust any api methods to stay constant, docs or no docs, and we just need to expect to change any/all ETL programs at a moments notice. That's life .... i've been fixing changes like this since the 70's	[reply]

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Re^6: Scraping an ASP form I don't have any control over
by huck (Prior) on May 31, 2017 at 07:20 UTC

And the youtube api just changed again. No notice, no updates to the docs, it just started returning different data out of the blue. Took me about 2 hours to determine that the problems is that for some reason specifying mine=true is returning a different channel-id and playlist-ids, and to build a workaround with forUsername= instead, since that returns the original data.

now this is google/youtube, one of the biggest players on the 'net', and they feel it is ok to just change the rules whenever they feel like it. If they do this it just shows it is foolish to trust any api methods to stay constant, docs or no docs, and we just need to expect to change any/all ETL programs at a moments notice. That's life .... i've been fixing changes like this since the 70's

[reply]