ironcrucible
Joined 12 years ago
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Comment · 12 years ago
> 2. Account for failure. The failure path is more important than the-one-true-path. Be verbose in your errors. Be specific in your error descriptions. Be extensive in the kinds of error conditions you test, particularly when validating the input. Bonus points here if you can make the API introspectable.
This is something that I had to deal with just last week. I had been integrating a 3rd-party API into a business application, and it had very poor error handling and error descriptions. It wasn't even consistent on when an endpoint would throw an exception or just return some JSON with an error message.
To make things worse, I kept running into the same generic error message: "Something went wrong. Please contact support at [email protected] if it continues". Of course, that kind of error message doesn't help their support team, so they could only guess as to what was going wrong. We finally figured it out after several hours of guessing.
What's strange is that this was an API for a moderately popular Silicon Valley startup that's marketed to and primarily used by developers.
Please, if you're building an API, don't write these generic messages!
Comment · 12 years ago
>It's been $19/yr for over a year now vs. the $25 one time cost to get into the Play Store. Also free for students and MSDN members.
In fact, Microsoft recently removed the annual fee altogether. The developer subscription is now a one-time charge of $19 [0], which lets you publish apps to both the Windows and Windows Phone stores.
[0]: http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/09/17/new-dev-cen...
Comment · 12 years ago
I had the same issue, using Firefox 33 on Windows 8.1. It looks like switching to Chrome fixed the demo. Would be nice to have some sort of notice that certain browsers aren't supported (if that's the case).
Also, fonts are rendering poorly in Firefox and Chrome [0]. Bumping the font-weight up to at least 400 makes the text much more legible.
Comment · 12 years ago
I'd be interested to know if Google Now can do people reminders. Unfortunately I sold my last Android device so I'm unable to test it myself, but a quick search brings up this article[1] which suggests that it doesn't exist yet. Either way, I'm sure it's only a matter of time until both Siri and Google Now can do it too (which is a good thing, I've found it incredibly useful).
[1]. https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/3122344?hl=en
Comment · 12 years ago
Thanks for clearing that up, I've never used Siri so I'm not qualified to talk about Apple's personal assistant features.
Comment · 12 years ago
I used to be a heavy Android user until I bought my first Windows Phone about six months ago. So far, Cortana has been one of the biggest[1] reasons I haven't switched back to Android, despite what feels like a lack of commitment and focus from Microsoft[2].
Her location-based and people-based reminders have been a killer feature for me. I can open Cortana and say "Next time I talk to my mother, remind me to ask her for her cheesey corn recipe". Then, next time I open the messaging app to text my mother, or open the email app to email her, or when the phone's GPS realizes I'm over at her house, Cortana will show that reminder[3].
It also works for location-based reminders: "Next time I'm at the hardware store, remind me to buy softener salt". It's been about six months since I've last used Android, but I don't think Google Now could do these types of reminders when I switched.
[1]. Two other reasons: I much prefer "Live Tiles" to widgets or app buttons, and the Lumia line's cameras blow most other phones out of the water.
[2]. According to the /r/WindowsPhone subreddit, Microsoft tends to update their apps on Android and iOS long before they update them on Windows Phone. Additionally, apps on the other two platforms tend to be more feature-complete. This is all anecdotal though, so take it with a grain of salt.
Shoot me an email at joshua(at)ironcrucible.com