[jxm262]

I believe haakon is correct on this one, unless I'm missing something. We just got into an argument at my work over the correct usage of the term "api", but found this post to back up my arguments - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8772746/difference-betwee...

Anyway, I'm not trying to nitpick or keep this side-discussion alive. But I'm genuinely curious how most people classify the difference between api and library.

Also on a sidenote, who's downvoting all the comments and the thread itself? This seems like a really cool project and it doesn't look like anyone's posted anything completely irrelevant here.

[jmsguy]

> But I'm genuinely curious how most people classify the difference between api and library.

JMS is an API [1], [2].

ActiveMQ [3] is an implementation of the JMS API.

Commons BeanUtils [4] is a library. The library itself has an API (that's how we interact with the library).

There is a semantic difference between the "JMS API" and the "BeanUtils API".

The former is just an API. It's a standard. It has no implementation. Implementations are all expected to utilize the API.

The latter is a library, but we need to talk to the library - and we do that through its API. However, the API that BeanUtils exposes is not standardized. It's by and large local to BeanUtils.

I hope this helps. Sorry it's so Java centric.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Message_Service

[2] http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/6/tutorial/doc/bncdr.html

[3] http://activemq.apache.org/

[4] http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-beanutils/

[IkmoIkmo]

> Also on a sidenote, who's downvoting all the comments and the thread itself?

The thread itself, no clue, how can you even see that? I'd assume there's quite a bit of people who get tired of hearing about bitcoin though. It's a bit like how I really, really didn't feel like hearing about social media being the biggest thing ever years back, until it became something actually substantial recently.

As for the comments, all I see is 'oh cool, awesome'. HN doesn't like that, you just use upvoting to show appreciation.

Anyway, I can't help but say it's pretty awesome, too. Bitpay's definitely been doing some great open-source work to create a bitcoin library that works as well (and similarly) in the browser as server side, it's really nice to work with and very comprehensive, too. I wish they had a little showcase page going where they point you to projects that use it, though. Their own Copay does for example, a shared wallet which I've tried a couple times, works very nicely.

[RemoteWorker]

> Also on a sidenote, who's downvoting all the comments and the thread itself? This seems like a really cool project and it doesn't look like anyone's posted anything completely irrelevant here.

Who else? Bitcoin haters and deniers like patio11. Such kinds of irrational and emotional people are everywhere, including HN. Keep in mind they can be good and logical at other things, but get emotional on one particular subject. Bitcoin shakes some of the foundations everyone on Earth has or has had at some point (like the concept of money, the justifications for inflation, etc.), and a lot of people don't like change.

[juliangregorian]

> Bitcoin shakes some of the foundations everyone on Earth has or has had at some point

really now...

> like the concept of money

Bitcoin is still money (which I would describe as a proxy for value with latency built in).

> the justifications for inflation

Other than eventually running out and deflating (probably a problem in it's own way), bitcoin doesn't address this problem.

What is bitcoin going to do to address fractional reserve banking, debt slavery, information asymmetry (insider trading), financial chicanery (selling debt-based products/toxic assets), which I would argue are bigger problems built into money as we know it. Nada that I'm aware of.

Why is bitcoin even less anonymous than traditional currency?

Why is it even more inequal (who has bitcoin? wealthy, technologically literate citizens of the first world) than traditional currency?

I agree that money sucks but bitcoin is hardly the solution we need.