Periodic Table of Google APIs
code.google.com
code.google.com
"Another sort of abuse is comedy periodic tables: periodic tables of the vegetables, period table of the desserts, periodic table of the presidents, and on and on. There are zillions of them. I believe the vegetables one was the first widely distributed example.
What's wrong with them? Again, they miss the point about the one true periodic table, Mendeleev's periodic table of the elements. In fact, to put things with no structure into a periodic table not only misses the point of the periodic table, it misses the profound idea that some things have periods."
No, it makes a joke about a reference most people will remember from school. This complaint is just pedantry.
The only bait is your trolling, which I won't abet further.
- Open up the Google API table. Close your eyes and click randomly on the page until two or more new windows appear.
- Using these APIs, create a mash-up with Bing Maps.
- Go to Domainr and search for an applicably douche-y domain to ship your new app under.
- Wait for the venture capital funding to flood in.
I believe the periodic table data is based on or generated from that list.
We do have quite a few APIs over overlapping areas, so the periodic table is a nice alternative way to get a feel for them.
Here on FF 3.6 on a 1280x1024 display, some of the labels are truncated...
There's really no reason that the relationship between typography, dessert, vegetables, google apis look anything like the relationship between the elements. If it did, we'd really be on to something!
But! If the relationships between google apis isn't at all like the elements, what would it look like? And even more interesting, if there are missing spaces, that means there are google apis not yet written that we can look forward to!
http://www.ozonehouse.com/mark/periodic/
Is an example where someone did a periodic table that tried to use space as a way to convey information about the relationship between the perl operators. Notice how it looks nothing like the PTofE. It has its own structure because the relationship between perl operators is different than the relationship between the elements.
Those of us that are sticklers about this feel so, probably because we find the beauty of the actual meaning behind the structure of the periodic table much much more interesting and beautiful than any joke you can make from it.
Sometimes, jokes are funny because they're the truth that no one wants to say. Like when Chris Rock says, "[When listening to your woman], you've always got to throw in 'told you that bitch crazy', because every woman has another woman at their work, that they can't stand"
Other times, jokes are funny because one doesn't know any better. Like when Chris Rock says, "If they can send a space shuttle to the moon, why can't they make an El Dorado with a bumper that doesn't fall off?"
although, that API is here: http://www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory/1?company=Goog...
Why don't they just offer a straight search API?
Edit: The Google Web Search API (http://code.google.com/apis/websearch/) was only deprecated in November of last year and should still be usable for a while, although the documentation appears to be gone.
If Google don't have social in their dna (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyOqNE7H9Ng/), then they should work with those that do.
When I started at Google, all of our APIs were true APIs, and my title was "API support engineer." Then we started developing these not-quite-API tools and platforms, and my titled changed to "Developer Programs Engineer". Also doesn't quite slip off the tongue. I do miss those simple days when we only had APIs... Alas!