API Practices If You Hate Your Customers
I was totally expecting to see something about using a protocol in an unexpected way, because "the protocol is not good enough".<p>I had to work with an API where the company decided everything should return http code 200 (well, at least all 4XX errors), and give the error code in the JSON response, mixing existing 4XX errors and their own errors.<p>When pointed out, the support answer was "we chose to give meaningful error messages instead of HTTP codes, that's why we respond with 200 in case there's an error in the request". Not the answer I was expecting.<p>Another annoying practice is to answer 2XX, put the request in a queue, and not provide ANY information about the queue, which can be minutes or even HOURS long. Debugging is a nightmare. The one I worked with who did that did not even have the excuse of being a startup or small company.