Goodreads Developers discussion

Probably, this will not get a response from GR representatives, but I will try still.

There are none public docs about the api resulting format (or if such thing is exist, please, let me know). This makes its usage at any production systems unrealistic. This also makes impossible to wrap all the staff in api into the sensible SDK or library for future usage. At 2k19 for such huge service its damn strange and discouraging. Look at the amazon itself api or github. Why can’t we have something similar? Does amazon, sponsoring GR, doesn’t have money to get a few Engineers to present proper documentation? Or is it a conscious decision to prevent anyone from making unofficial clients better than official?

If specifically, I would be happy to see the following:
* xml schema or just regular spec about at least most (ha ha, low bar) api results, so I could stop do reverse engineering the results
* more details info about api usage (Did you know that in 2k19 things like poster exists!)
* enumerators list (I get “format: ebook”, great, what else could I get as a format? How can I be sure I check all of this? and this applies for any enums) and possible ranges for data fields!
* error handling specs
* nils? and what fields always not null?

How the hell could anyone make stable apps with such api? I like GR and using it for many years. I would be happy to see such docs and to see many third-party apps, based on this api. Could we make it possible?

All of the issues you are experiencing with the API is in an effort to discourage you from re-using their data in your applications.

Also, and this seems the most broken part, I just realized that I'm getting different results even obtaining the same book via different api. Lol. This is for now definitely the most broken api I ever worked with. Too shame. Just wasn't re-watching Goodreads CEO talk back in 2006 about the greatest importance of answering the forum)