Simon Willison’s Weblog

Which format for API documentation programmers prefer: PDF or Web?

HTML is a better format for documentation than PDF.

Does the Google Maps API let you remove details of the map such as street names to focus on pins on the map?

Yes—you can do this with map styles (which allow you to set the visibility if road labels, among other things): http://developers.google.com/map...

Which is the most complete and up to date API for restaurants/nightlife?

The foursquare API is pretty great for restaurants and nightlife these days. No chance if revenue share though—how would you envisage revenue share working?

Which free encyclopedias offer free APIs?

Wikipedia runs using Mediawiki, and Mediawiki has an API: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API

What information do you feel is most valuable when integrating a Web API (REST or SOAP)?

• A really good API explorer
• Comprehensive documentation of the response format, including what happens if certain fields are missing (empty string, null value, missing key?)
• Comprehensive documentation of the available request parameters, including allowed values
• What are the rate limits?
• What is returned if there is an error?