Google Drive Realtime API
developers.google.com
developers.google.com
I'm curious about the details though, which would be ironed out with some more detailed playground examples. Does the API handle merging of the update events on the client side, or do I have to do all that work myself from the stream of insert/removal events? Can I handle them myself if I want? Assuming I want to extend the UI of these updatable strings, so that people can see other people's cursors and such, what would I need to do? Is the client-side library extendable so it can update my UI without hammering my customizations (cursor position, formatting, embedded data transformed into HTML)? How will that scale once the document grows to a considerable size (will I be able to update only changed portions of the DOM created by a large document without doing my own complex diffing logic on the client side)?
For example, build me a basic rich text editor in this that mimicks some of the features of Docs, and show me how much extra code that takes. This code sample by itself doesn't make me confident that the above features would be simple: https://github.com/googledrive/realtime-playground/blob/mast...
It's precisely those richer features of the Google Docs experience that people crave when they say they want to add "realtime collaboration" to an app, not just .val()'ing form fields to the latest known value from the server. Right now this looks like it has the features of a backbone.js + Couch adapter (e.g., http://janmonschke.com/projects/backbone-couchdb.html) except Google sits on all my data.
Just because google shut down reader doesn't mean that this applies to their APIs more than any other company's. If you build something that relies on an API that can disappear at any time, you have nobody to blame but yourself.
The examples I can think of off hand are all Google App Engine related but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Drive APIs have the same thing.
Here we have what looks like a cool, well documented, API to a powerful service supported by a major company and instead of talking about the cool things we could build with it we seem to be indulging in that most deplorable and pointless of past times - the fan boy cat fight.
This is still called "Hacker" news correct?
FYI the translate API is paid - not retired. The rates are very low and free for limited use. Furthermore CalDAV was one of the worst things I have ever had the displeasure to work with - why are we mourning that ?
Now - can we please talk about something worthwhile like ... Oh! ... the OP /rant
Yeah, it's been 6 whole days! Some people really dwell in the past, don't they? I don't see what the big deal is, especially since Google has already given us something way better, which will replace RSS, Twitter, Facebook, and probably email – in a couple of months everyone will be using Google+ and we'll have forgotten all about Reader.
Plus my point was that the demise of Reader had nothing to do with the OP, and that its continued discussion in any post containing the letter G was pathetic, detracting from more interesting conversations we could and should be having - like the one about the possibilities of the new Drive API...
I'm tired of the railroading and the assumption that a for-profit organization has some sacred duty to think about anything more than its bottom-line. That Google thinks beyond its bottom line quit often (Glass, Cars etc...) is to its credit - IMO that it does not do so all the time (Wave, Buzz, Video, Reader etc...) is NOT to its discredit.
Google's problem right now is that it has pissed off a vocal minority with the Google Reader shutdown, so any announcement is being met with pessimism and mistrust.
Google Translate? Google Search API?
>Move on.
Yes, let's just forget about all the stuff Google does that sucks and pretend it never happened.
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=anon1385
https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=anon1385
Carry on, I guess.
There has been a lot of Google news the last week, and loads of submissions on HN, so I've made quite a few posts on them. That is hardly comparable to having an account for a year or more but only ever posting in stories about a single corporation to defend that corporation.
I don't know why you linked my submissions, only 4 out of the last 30 of them, going back ~560 days were about Google or Google products.
His point is that things must never change?
Google Docs looks like it has a healthy future, but they very easily could decide they don't want the API out there. Particularly with Google's newfound lack of fear of pissing people off.
[1] https://developers.google.com/translate/
[2] http://googlemerchantblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-shopping-...
in the first case the developer is the user adopting the API, and enhancing his own service with it, without the end user noticing it.
With this new API the end users of the product will be people with google accounts which will be able to seamlessly interact with 3rd party products. This greatly benefits the company as a platform, which seems to be the recent focus (which led to unpopular unfortunate choices as dropping "leaf" products).
It's ok to criticize that choice etc, but that's another topic. I guess that if you want to build an application which leverages on the google's ecosystem, it's a reasonably safe bet it won't be dropped soon, as google has a immediate return from it (unlike translate API for instance).
Last weeks reshuffle which had the Maps and Commerce units absorbed into the Knowledge and Ads units respectively and Pichai taking over Android brings it down to 5 focus areas:
SVP of Knowledge/Search — Alan Eustace, SVP of Identity/Social — Vic Gundotra, SVP of Advertising and Commerce — Susan Wojcicki, SVP of YouTube/Video — Salar Kamangar, SVP of Android, Chrome and Google Apps — Sundar Pichai
The key distinction between Drive and Reader is that Drive is pretty much the embodiment of Google Apps itself, whereas Reader was an orphaned product which didn't have a home in any of these 5 post-Page areas.
Drive is now a pillar of Google's services, not just Apps but Google Now and search rely on data stored in it, and with many competing storage services around any differentiating feature is worth having.
Still, I'm a bit wary that they're offering this as a API, rather than a framework. I don't know if I would build an application completely on top of an external API...
The technology is compatible, and it should be pretty easy to make ShareJS compatible with the GDrive client API.
I've been racking my brain trying to think of the first service that I used regularly that was shut down. Pownce maybe? (anyone else remember that?).
I'm currently hunting for a replacement for Gmail that is self-hosted, or at least a solution where the cost of switching providers is low (i.e. I could shift my email to a new host without changing my email address or losing my message history). I'll probably end up using some sort of IMAP provider. There are a lot of features I'd stand to lose though. Conversation view is hugely useful, and Gmail's spam filter is just unbeatable.
both twitter and in some part google have recently acted very hostile to the notion of the open web. (Although referring to corporations as a singular entity irks me somewhat)
Slight disappointment after following the link of course :)
This kinda limits you to Google Docs style apps, as opposed to other crazy ideas I might have. I would also like to have an option to pay so that I can keep our users data private.
Edit: Added clarification.
Developers authorize and create API with Google but it will be nice to allow users to collaborate anonymously like Sharing a Google Doc to the public.
Google Drive works great for everyone I know, are you referring to the short downtime the other day?
A quick search provided this but it does not have any of the unofficial internal API's that we love so much.
I'm thinking this would make a killer back-end for certain kinds of websites.