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by ReadingInBed 3740 days ago
Having spent countless hours working with third party apis that are poorly documented and business critical I can understand how unexpected changes can be frustrating. But asking people to do things your way with no incentive is even more frustrating for everyone. It comes off as you not respecting their time or the product and apis they have already built.
1 comments

We very much respect Pinboard's time and are willing to give them just about as much of it as they need. Am willing to spend our time as well! We are looking to improve all of these integrations over time, beyond what their API can support and the best way for Pinboard to do this is to own that integration completely.
OK, but considering that people don't work for free to help others make money do you think it's reasonable to ask maciej or anyone else to do what you're asking them to? You say "it's the best way if they own the integration" as if owning it and the headaches it entails helps developers at all. Why not go for the suboptimal way and maintain it yourself, like you have been all these years?

I get that your service looks bad when integrations break but you could make a different contract requiring developers to give you a heads up in advance of any API changes and then you do the work of keeping the integrations working.

> We very much respect Pinboard's time and are willing to give them just about as much of it as they need

Demanding someone make changes and then offering them as much time as they need is missing the point. It's not the deadline that's offensive, it's the request for free work that you benefit from.

I respect your time as well. Please, take as much of it as you need. I'm generous that way.